Week 2 of ETL 6 Week Challenge

I felt so much better doing the 2nd week of the ETL 6-Week Challenge!  I had the obstacles of date night with the husband as well as traveling out of town for the 4th.  In the end I did my best and was happy to get back into routine this Monday.  Last week I was also able to incorporate more exercise since my tweaked hip has just about recovered.  Here is what I ate and how I did:

• Monday
• Breakfast: large apple
• Lunch: large green salad with chickpeas
• Exercise: 3.15 walk outside after work
• Dinner: steamed sugar snap peas topped with Thai peanut sauce and raw sunflower seeds, big bowl of veggie soup
• Extras: homemade chocolate banana nice cream

• Tuesday
• Breakfast: sugar snap peas, cucumber slices, apple
• Lunch: large green salad with chickpeas, banana
• Exercise: 2.5 mile walk outside after work
• Dinner: water sauteed mushrooms, onions, and kale topped with sesame seeds, sugar snap peas
• Extras: glass of wine with dinner

• Wednesday
• Breakfast: cucumber slices, apple
• Lunch: medium green salad and leftover sauteed mushrooms, onions, and kale
• Exercise: no exercise today, some stretching before bed
• Extras: snack of some gooseberries and red currants on the way home, two beers out with friends
• Dinner: late dinner after we got home from trivia of corn on the cob and veggie soup

• Thursday
• Breakfast: peach and berry fruit bowl
• Lunch: large green salad
• Exercise: 1 hour at the gym with 30 minutes biking and 30 minutes lifting weights
• Dinner: corn grits and Cajun shrimp - This was date night with my husband to a Cajun restaurant he had been wanting to try for a long time.  I was hoping they would have red beans and rice for me, but no such luck, so I settled on the corn grits and Cajun shrimp.  This was about the only thing on the menu not fried.  I ended up eating only 1/3 of the portion and my husband was happy to have the leftovers the next day.
• Extras: one beer with dinner, raspberries after dinner out

• Friday
• Breakfast:  slept in and skipped breakfast
• Lunch:  green salad and 1/2 slice of whole grain bread at a deli
• Dinner:  Steamed baby bok choy with Thai peanut sauce and sesame seeds
• Exercise: 1 hour of gardening
• Extras: snack of roasted chickpeas and veggies while prepping food for traveling the next day, chocolate banana nice cream after dinner

Here is a picture from today (Monday) of the kale salad I had on Sautrday while at the beach.

• Saturday - 4th of July and day trip to Ocean Shores, WA
• Breakfast: large apple as we arrived at Ocean Shores
• Lunch:  1 grilled baja taco, celery, carrots, apples
• Dinner: kale and chickpea salad with sun dried tomato dressing, veggie dog
• Exercise:  tons of walking around the beach (over 12,000 steps this day)
• Extras: dark chocolate covered almonds and cashews, two beers on the beach

So sunburnt! :(

• Sunday
• Breakfast: raspberries and blackberries
• Lunch: veggie dog sauteed with onion and mushrooms
• Dinner: not hungry, skipped dinner
• Exercise: no exercise this day - we woke up very tired, dehydrated, and sun burnt from the day before :(
• Extras: chocolate banana nice cream later in the evening

HOPE EVERYONE HAD A SAFE AND FUN 4TH OF JULY!

Overall, I think I handled the harder situations of dining out and traveling fairly well.  Was it a perfect week?  No, but I made very conscious decisions to include as many veggies as I could while limiting my not-ideal foods to a minimum.

Over the weekend while we traveled I got pretty dehydrated because using the restroom on the beach on Saturday was extremely limited.  Im looking forward to staying very well hydrated in the heat this week, as well as incorporating more beans into my daily diet.

Health and Happiness,

Amy

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Days 11 12 and rest day

I started level 2. Overall impression of level 2: it is tough, but doable. For me actually it became more interesting and challenging. In level 2 the exercises become more difficult, and one has to really keep attention up: to note all the angles and turns of wrists, feet, etc. Here angles become even more important. So beware!

In day 11 I had to separate the DC and MS - as I didnt have enough time in the morning (overslept) and it felt like I was much stronger when I was doing MS. I am not sure if it is about the change, or because I was not already exhausted by DC, but it went almost easy. Then I had my rest day, and on day 12 - 4th of March, I went to the consulate to vote and had salsa, so I only did MS in the evening. Will get back to DC tomorrow - for sure!

Diet... Well, what can I say - I was off it for 1.5 days almost. Though I still tried to keep up the more or less healthy food. But yesterday was my birthday, so my sweetheart arranged a couple niceties for me - so sweet! He whisked me off to a hotel with spa, got me a cake with candles (I really begged to get something really really really tiny - I am still on diet!! :D), a wonderful present, romance, champagne, amazing dinner, and then salsa dancing. We got a little too much of drink - oops, but it was a wonderful day. And I had some nice and not too unhealthy food...

Breakfast (birthday cake and champagne):

Lunch (small chicken soup and a salad, ate 2 pieces of bread :(...):

Dinner (rumpsteak with rucola and tomatoes, tomato salad):

(I know, I know, its a steak, but at least I ordered it without any sauce (and it is protein after all!), and also had only fresh veggies with it, rather than any bad roasted potatoes and other unhealthy fatty things.)

So, the diet was not too bad, but well not precisely what was prescribed... But overall, I had a great weekend, and I loved it and felt great! :) Back to the diet - week 3 starting tomorrow!

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Curry Carrot Soup

We just got back yesterday from a week long vacation on an Alaskan Cruise (a few pictures are at the bottom of this post), and I came home to a bare bones fridge without any willpower to make it to the grocery store.  I grabbed all of the surviving veggies out of the pantry and fridge and got to work.  Sometimes the best recipes come from those we throw together out of necessity, and this is a keeper!

It is ever so slightly starting to feel like fall in western Washington, so this creamy, comforting soup just hit the spot.  Along with an afternoon of football, knitting, and tea, this soup got me in the mood to cuddle up on the couch, wear fuzzy socks, and relax.  Ahhhh... :)

I made this recipe in my InstantPot Duo pressure cooker, but it can easily be done on the stovetop or a crockpot by adjusting the cooking times.  See my notes below for suggested adjustments.

Curry Carrot Soup
(Pressure Cooker Friendly)
Time: 10 minutes prep, 6 minutes high pressure
Servings: 6-8 servings

Ingredients:
        2 cups chopped onion
        2 celery sticks, chopped
        4 cups chopped carrots
        1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
        1/2 Tbsp minced garlic
        1 tsp minced ginger
        1 tsp cumin seeds
        1 tsp fennel seeds (optional)
        1/2 tsp dried mustard powder (optional)
        1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cubbed
        1 cup dried yellow split peas
        1 cup dried red lentils
        6 cups water (boiling water will bring pot to pressure faster, optional)
        2 Tbsp mild curry powder
        1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (to taste)

        3 red bell peppers, roasted, peeled, deseeded, and chopped

Pressure Cooker Instructions:
1.)  In a large pressure cooker, saute the onion, celery, carrots, mushrooms, garlic, ginger, cumin, and fennel seeds for 3-5 minutes.
2.)  Add in the remaining ingredients except for the roasted red bell peppers.  Stir to distribute spices throughout.
3.)  Lock the lid in place and cook at high pressure for 6 minutes.  Allow the pressure to come down naturally for 15 minutes, and then release any remaining pressure.
4.)  Carefully remove the lid once pressure has been released.  Add in the chopped roasted peppers.  Serve chunky or use an immersion blender to cream the soup, adding additional water to reach the desired consistency.  Serve hot and enjoy!

Amys Notes:
To make this soup on the stovetop, follow the same directions to saute, but simmer for 20-30 minutes in place of the 6 minutes cooking at pressure.

To make this soup in a crockpot, throw all of the ingredients in and cook on high for about 4 hours.

I would suggest topping with green onion, cilantro, parsley, basil, or nutritional yeast.  Again, I was running on empty cupboards, so mine pictured is merely garnished with fresh ground black pepper.

Now, here are a few pictures from our Alaskan Cruise last week... :)

Our first stop was in Ketchican.  We started the day by going to Creek Street (the old red light district), and then continued for a hike up Deer Mountain.  I hiked about halfway up (1500 feet) until we got to a beautiful overlook.  We met my parents halfway up the trail and Kevin and my dad decided to continue to the top of the mountain (3200 feet) while my mom and I slowly made our way down the mountain so I would have time to check out a yarn shop in town.

This is Kevin after the long hike.  The peak above is where him and my dad made it up to.  We were all a little sore the day following, but the views and scenery made it all worth it!

Our next stop should have been up the Tracy Arm Fjord, but unfortunately someone had a medical emergency that day on the ship and we had to proceed to Juneau instead of  seeing the Tracy Arm Glacier.  Huge bummer!  Thankfully, we didnt have any hard-set plans in Juneau and were able to take a shuttle up to Mendenhall Glacier.  The weather was perfectly sunny, but just cool enough that I got to rock some of my favorite knitted pieces.

Later in Juneau we took another shuttle to the Alaskan Brewery for a guided tasting.  Lots of fun to learn about the innovative ways the brewery has adapted to produce the quantities they do with more efficiency and less environmental impacts (recycling CO2 from fermentation and using spent grain biomass for energy).  The beer was delicious!

Health and Happiness,

Amy

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Lose 20 Pounds in 3 Weeks

So you want to take off 20 pounds as quickly as possible? Well you are not alone. Perhaps you have tried to do this on your own by starving yourself for a week or going on some fad diet. Sure, you’ll take off 5 pounds right away, but then you find that you reach a plateau and cannot seem to lose the last 5 pounds. Half of the time, you end up gaining a few pounds back and feel more discouraged than ever. I know how it feels as this was me not so long ago.

Perhaps you have seen ads for “magic pills” that cost a fortune and promise to melt off your excess pounds without any effort on your part. Save your money. There is only one way to lose weight and keep it off and that is to cut your calorie intake and increase your level of activity. There is no “big secret” to losing weight, but you do have to have the mindset for it. In other words, your desire to lose weight has to be stronger than your desire to eat. With that mindset, you can do anything.

I never had a problem with my weight until I reached 40. At that time I found that I was packing on more weight than ever before. It was also at this time that I quit smoking. I found myself eating more and exercising less. Before I knew it, my clothes were really tight and I had gained an extra 20 pounds, seemingly overnight.

But I wasn’t about to go buy new clothes. I had lost weight before. After I had my children I had some extra pounds to lose and took them off right away. So I figured it would be easy to just get rid of 20 extra pounds. So I started a diet and starved myself for a week. I did lose 5 pounds but that was it. I couldn’t get the scale to budge after that. And then I came down with a cold.

I wasn’t ready to give up. I tried several different methods to lose weight but nothing seemed to work. Then I talked to a friend who I consider to be a weight loss expert. My friend had lost 80 pounds. She confirmed that it takes a while to lose weight, that weight loss does not happen quickly and that it should take four months to lose 20 pounds. But then she let me in on a few secrets of how I can speed up the process and lose 20 pounds in three weeks.

In this blog I am going to explain exactly everything you need to know to loose 20 pounds in just three weeks, it worked for me and it WILL work for you too if you stick to what I did. Ill be posting complete details of the system I have developed over the coming weeks. I was intending to release this as a book, but then remembered how many times I had bought books and courses on weight loss that were useless. So I decided to give my complete system away for FREE as a blog so that you can prove to yourself that you can loose weight without spending a fortune.

You should understand that the methods I am going to recommend to lose 20 pounds in 3 weeks are meant to be for short term weight loss or to jump start a diet; they are not meant to be used on a long-term basis. My method of weight loss really does work, I’ve tried it myself. I lost the weight I wanted to lose and fit comfortably into my clothes again. Last year, when I packed on a few extra pounds over the holidays, I used this method again and it worked again. I have also recommended it to friends who either wanted to get started losing a lot of weight or just wanted to shed some extra weight and it worked for them, too.

Use all of the methods that I describe in this blog and I guarantee that you are going to lose 20 pounds in 3 weeks. I will be posting my full system over the next few days.

Tomorrow Ill be publishing the first part of my system. Check back here tomorrow to read: Chapter 1 - How Weight Loss Works

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This Instant Pot and I are going to be best friends!

Hi folks!  Earlier this week, on Monday, I received one of two packages I had been waiting for: Lorna Sass Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure.  I had mentioned in a post a few weeks ago that I was looking into getting a pressure cooker and a cookbook to go along with it.  I settled on this cookbook, which was published in 1994, to start my love affair with pressure cooking because...

1.) Chef AJ recommends the book here,
2.) the reviews said that this cookbook is almost completely vegan besides occasional suggested cheese toppings that could be replaced with nutritional yeast if I really wanted,
3.) the reviews said that even non-vegetarians will love (a.k.a. my meat and potatoes husband), and
4.) most reviews raved about their favorite recipe and I wanted to TRY THEM ALL!

After spending most of Monday evening reading soaking up its recipes and tips, and fantasizing about myself with a clean kitchen and an electric pressure cooker quietly and rapidly cooking my delicious healthy food, I hopped onto my computer to check the shipment tracking on the InstantPot IP-DUO60 that I had ordered at the same time as the book.

Amazon said it hadnt even been shipped! :(  I knew it was due to arrive anytime between October 7th to the 10th, but it was the 6th and it hadnt even left the warehouse!?!  Poo poo!

After going back to work on Tuesday (I took Monday off to recover from Leavenworth, and actually ended up with a little cold to nurse), I spent all day thinking about what recipes I wanted to make out of the book and how I wished my Instant Pot would get here sooner!

Around my lunch break on Tuesday, I checked with Amazon again for the tracking.  Hopefully it had left the warehouse by now....  It said "Delivered"!  How on earth that could happen is beyond me, but it was waiting at home for me!  After a few more hours crawled by, I left work to stop at my favorite farmers stand to pick up some produce I would need, and then headed home.

I eagerly unpacked my produce and opened my lovely, large InstantPot package!

First thing I did: read the getting started directions of course, I am a woman!  Then I washed the new parts and started a quick soak on some chickpeas for a soup I was planning on making for dinner.  Normally I pre-soak my beans, but when a pressure cooker is just waiting to be used, a quick soak would have to do.

Little did I know, the pressure cooker also works to quickly quick-soak dried beans.  A normal quick soak involves bringing a pot with dried beans up to a boil for a few minutes, then allowing the beans to stand in the hot water off of the burner for 1 hour, before then cooking the beans for 2+ hours to get them edible.

A quick soak in a pressure cooker combined 1 cup of dried chickpeas (all I needed for the recipe, but it would fit more) with 3 cups of water.  I locked the lid and set the InstantPot to high pressure for 20 minutes, then allowed the pressure to come down naturally.  This took a total of about 35 minutes to quick soak, rather than 1 hour plus.  This step could also be avoided by soaking beans overnight, which I will do from now on, but this night I didnt expect my PC to be here so soon.

(Sorry, I wish I had more pictures of the process to share, but I was just too excited to get started that I forgot to grab my camera.  More pictures will be coming when I get the hang of things!)

While the beans were cooking, I prepped the ingredients for the soup, and even had time to clean up the kitchen.  After draining and rinsing the quick-soaked beans, I filled the pot with all of the ingredients for Lorna Sass Chickpea Soup Italiano.  Set the pot for 16 minutes at high pressure, then allowed the pressure to come down naturally, for a total of around 30 minutes.

During the times the pot was cooking, there were no sounds, no dreaded hissing of the pressure cooker horror stories you may have heard.  There was actually no times that I felt that it felt unsafe, which is a relief.

I had the Chickpea Soup Italiano for dinner that night and it was delicious!  I sent Kevin to work with the leftovers from the half batch the next day. (His pictures arent as pretty as mine would have been ;)).

Chickpea Soup Italiano from Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure

After packing away the leftover soup, I made a half batch of Lornas Garlicy Lentil Soup.  Since lentils cook even faster than dried beans, this soup only needed 7 minutes at high pressure, with a natural pressure release.  I found that I needed to add a bit more stock at the end than it had called for, but it made for a nice thick lentil soup.  This was my lunch today and the day before, and the wonderful aroma alone may have convinced a coworker of mine to get the same pressure cooker.

Then, this morning I steamed my breakfast kale in it.  This went super quickly with only 3 minutes at high pressure and a quick release.  No pictures of this, sorry.

As you can tell, Im super giddy about my new pressure cooker.  I may have a bit of an hiatus of creating recipes for the blog as I explore how to use this new wonderful contraption, but I will keep you guys posted on how Im doing through some of my other social media accounts (see top right of blog for links).

Health and Happiness,

Amy

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Vegan Caesar Dressing

I hope everyone has been having a splendid week.  Kevin and I got the keys to our new apartment yesterday and are moving things over at a bit of a leisurely pace, which is very nice.

The day before that, Tuesday, I ended up going to a doctors clinic for what I thought was an ear infection coming on.  On my drive to the clinic, the pain in my ear had spread to behind my right upper cheek bone and eye socket.  I tried to breath deeply to lessen the pain, but when I breathed in too much, sharp pains shot up into the right side of my face.  By the time I got to the clinic and was taken to a patient room, the pain had worsened to the point that my right cheek was numb.  This really scared me to the point that I came close to fainting several times because I thought something worse was happening to me.  It turns out that I have TMJ (mandible joint problems) that flared up some sore muscles and tendons (think knee joint pain but in your face!).  The pain and anxiety caused my face to go numb, which snowballed into me panicking to the point of nearly fainting.

In the end, my doctor just recommended relaxing, breathing steadily, and taking Advil when I feel the pain start to come on in the future.  Essentially, I was having a massive migraine that was brought on my TMJ pain and stress.  The TMJ pain probably flared up in the first place because of stress, from clenching my jaw and not knowing it.  I went home and spent the rest of the day in bed with no lights and no sounds for the most part.  Kevin was so sweet and made me dinner (Mac and cheese, dont judge, it is my sick food sometimes), and he laid in bed helping me relax and watching some Netflix comedies to cheer me up.

In conclusion, migraines suck.  I have never had one before, but have seen my mom deal with them for years.  I just hope that they are few and far between, especially now that I am paying attention to how my jaw in working when its at rest and when I am eating.  Overall the thing that scared me the most was my face going numb from the pain and anxiety.  My mind started racing uncontrollably thinking "what if something is neurologically wrong?" or "what if I have a stroke and my face will droop?"  I know, crazy questions, but in that moment, your brain thinks of anything and everything.  Thinking this way just made me panic and become more numb and faint.

After the whole ordeal was over, I just had to remind myself exactly why I eat the way I do and try so hard to be healthy: to have a long and healthy life free of disease.  This desire seems more and more real to me now.  At first when I began eating a nutritarian diet, I did it all for weight loss.  Over the last two years it has developed into doing it to feel good, have energy, sleep better, and to boost my immune system.  Now Im seeing it in a whole new light to protect me from heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and dementia later in life.  I couldnt imagine living with the fear of those diseases looming over me for life, and with a Nutritarian diet, I dont have to.

How has your reasons for living a healthy lifestyle changed over time?

Now onto something I have been excited to post since this weekend... I finally made a vegan caesar salad dressing!  I have been wanting to give this a try since this summer when I successfully made Vegan Ranch Dressing and Vegan 1000 Island Dressing.  For Caesar, I had no idea where to start.  I knew I wanted it to be nut based, have no oil, and very little to no sugar or salt.  I started this weekend by looking at the ingredients in my husbands Caesar dressing bottle, then started looking up how Caesar dressings are traditionally made online.  It turns out that a common ingredient in Caesar dressings is anchovy paste.  If that doesnt want to make you gag, I dont know what will!  If this slight fishy taste went into the dressing, I decided I could use a bit of dried kelp.  That would add a little bit of sodium to the taste as well.  Parmesan was also a main ingredient, so an easy fix was to use nutritional yeast.  Overall, I think I achieved the taste I was going for, and especially the consistency.  Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup raw cashews
• 3/4 cup water, more to consistency
• 3-5 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp roasted garlic cloves
• 1 Tbsp dejon mustard
• 1 & 1/2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 dried date
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt or dried kelp
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1/4 tsp onion powder

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 375 F.  Line a cookie sheet with foil and place several cloves of garlic, detached from the bulb, but not unwrapped fully.  Bake for 20-30 minutes, until the cloves are able to be pierced with a fork.
2. While the garlic is roasting, prepare the other ingredients.  Boil enough water to cover the cashews in a small bowl, pour, and let sit for ten minutes before draining and adding it to the blender.
3. Add the remaining ingredients to a high power blender.  Once the garlic had roasted, peel off the outer layer and add approximately 2 tablespoons of roasted cloves to the blender.  Start with 3/4 cups of water and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice and add more by the tablespoon to achieve the consistency and taste you desire.
4. Blend on high until smooth and creamy.
5. Store in a refrigerator for a bit before serving (remember the cashews and garlic that went in were hot or warm, which will make the dressing not quite the temperature you want).
6. Serve on top of any salad, or for a Caesar Salad, have it on lettuce, sprinkled with nutritional yeast and croutons on top.  Enjoy!

Amys Notes:

• If you have a nut allergy to cashews, try making the recipe with sunflower seeds, pine nuts, walnuts, almonds, etc.  Or a combination of any nut/seed you would like.  Overall, it will give you a similar taste.
• If you dont have dried kelp, it is not a major ingredient and can be easily left out.  I would suggest blending all of the ingredients together before adding salt, for you might not need it.
• Be careful to add your water tablespoon by tablespoon.  I found the exact right consistency for me somewhere between 3/4 and 1 cup of water added.

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Keeping The Weight Off

If you follow the tips that I have outlined in this blog this far, you will lose 20 pounds in 3 weeks, guaranteed. You will feel good about this accomplishment as well and you might even lose a size or two in your clothing. The trick is now to keep the weight off.

One thing that you should do is to continue with the exercise routine. This is crucial to keeping the weight off that you have lost. Change is very difficult for most people, even when it is positive change. You might find yourself slipping back into your former routine and eating foods that are not good for you. If you find that you are doing this, stop and get right back on the right path.

You may love fried foods and long for chicken and French fries. You can have them, and ice cream, too. Just remember that they are very high in calorie content and fat and cut your normal portion of these items. Remember to eat until you are no longer hungry and not until you are stuffed to the point that you can no longer move.

Do not obsess over weight gain of a pound or so. You might want to increase your activity so that you can take off that pound, but we all tend to fluctuate with our weight by a few pounds. Hopefully, after you have read this book and succeeded in taking off the 20 pounds, you will have a better understanding of how to eat, what to eat and what not to eat. This can make losing additional weight much easier than you may have imagined.

Continuing to eat a healthy diet, avoiding foods that are not nutritious and provide you with nothing but empty calories and exercising is the way to keep those 20 pounds off. Not only will you look better and your clothes fit you much nicer, but you will also feel better both mentally and physically. Once you continue with the healthy eating habits as outlined in this book, you will find that you do not have to concentrate so hard on watching your weight as you will be able to naturally maintain it.

Remember to keep your eyes on the prize. Your mind is your best motivational diet tool, so do not underestimate its power. Focus on other aspects of your life other than food and maintain your desire to stay at your ideal weight, making it more important than your desire for food. Congratulations on your weight loss and good luck in keeping it off in the future!

Todays post completes my system. From now on Ill post additional information and details of weight loss techniques and tips that REALLY work, so keep checking back for my latest updates.

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