The Case of the Missing Lunch

I’m still trying to decide exactly what I want this blog to be. I was trying food journal last week (although without breakfast), and I don’t think that’s the way I’m going to go. I do a lot of repeat meals for financial and time-constraint reasons and seeing my daily salad with a sprinkle of goat cheese is going to get old real fast. So I think I’ll be adopting an approach I’ve seen many food bloggers take — I’ll photograph and blog some meals (the interesting ones, or the ones with a bit of a story), but not all.

With that being said, let’s talk about my lunch yesterday.

I bought the stuff for lunch but didn’t pack it the night before. Which meant a pre-coffee Amy shuffling around the kitchen at 7 AM throwing stuff together for lunch. I tossed a few veggies in a bag, put 2 tablespoons of hummus in a container, and threw a Thomas Bagel Thin in. Hummus sandwich!

Before I actually leave work to go to lunch I logged my calories. I look down at the lunch totals. 200.

I PACKED A 200 CALORIE LUNCH?

110 calories for the bagel thin, 80 or so for the hummus (and a few for the vegetables, but who cares about the calories in vegetables? I log them for nutritional reasons). 200 calories is a snack, not a lunch. This is what happens when I pack my lunch at 7 AM. This is also why I’m currently logging my calories. It’s not so much about staying under a certain amount of calories as it is looking at my daily nutrition as a whole. I find it really interesting to see my calorie/protein/carb/fat breakdowns over my meals. I’m a dork.

I’m a dork who is certainly not eating a 200 calorie lunch. The absolute minimum number of calories I aim for on a non-workout day (which is every day, apparently) is 1,600, just to put this in perspective. I headed to Whole Foods to supplement the sad lunch.

I nearly squealed with delight when I saw they had the vegan tortilla soup. I restrained myself from getting the pint, knowing I could never eat it all, and filled up the little cup size. I also picked up an avocado roll because, well, it’s an avocado roll.

I turned out to be a pretty amazing lunch. I looooove their vegan tortilla soup.

In terms of saving money this was definitely a fail. But in terms of deliciousness, WIN.

Projects

My big project for today was transferring my hotmail life over to gmail. I’ve been with hotmail pretty much since I got a computer. I’m not one for change, I guess. But since gmail lets you import all your mail from other accounts I did it. I need some google type organization in my life.

I feel like I’ve been doing “projects” lately. Organize gmail. Start a blog. Write down a detailed page numbered outline of my novel so that editing is not so horrific.

So I decided my project for next week needs to be exercise. A couple years ago a light week of exercise meant I was only going 3 days a week. 3 years ago, when I lost all my weight, I went 6 times a week, religiously.

I genuinely enjoy working out. I spent my high school years exercising for 2 hours every morning (color guard one year, dancing the rest). I think establishing this kind of schedule when I was young made exercise something I would crave forever.

When I got my first “real job” out of college 2 1/2 years ago (the same job I’m in now) finding time to exercise became more of a challenge. If I worked out in the morning I had to get up an hour to an hour and half earlier than I would normally. I’m a 7-8 hours of sleep a night person. I will pick sleep over exercise every time. If I did get to bed early enough I would have to make sure I had every thing I needed packed in my gym bag. This was a bit of pressure, since if I forgot to pack something important — my bra, shirt, whatever — I was definitely going to have to run back home. Which meant I would be late for work.

I did morning workouts semi-regularly for my first couple years working. But then my schedule changed. I had to be at work an hour earlier, and morning workouts were just not happening. I tried evening workouts as well, but that was torture. I was so tired after working all day. I want to enjoy my workouts, not hate them.

The last time I worked out was a couple weeks ago. It was an exercise DVD, which I have gotten more into lately. My exercise schedule for the last 6 months has been sporadic at best, and I really want to get back to a regular schedule. Even if it’s just 2 times a week at first.

So my project for next week, starting on Saturday, is to work out more. From Saturday until next Friday, I want to get just two workouts in. I’m thinking maybe a level or 2 of Jillian’s Shred, and another day of Bob’s Yoga DVD. 2 days is not a lofty goal, so I better do it. The gym is not an option right now with my early work schedule and a car that only starts when it feels like it.

Moving on. I had fish (the mahi mahi again) and brown rice again today, but I threw in some black beans today since I was hungry yesterday.

No salad today because I knew I would be pressed for time at work. I hate eating salad at my desk. I’m a messy salad eater.

Plus some dark chocolate with sea salt. I love this stuff. It’s so delicious I find it really easy to practice portion control. I had 2 squares.

And grapes throughout the day. These were organic and locally grown in California and they’re delicious.

Dinner was whole wheat pasta with Ragu.

It was fabulously delicious.

Cheating

The word “cheating” really annoys me. Not in the “I cheated on my girlfriend” way, although that would more than annoy me. No, I mean it in the “I cheated on my diet” way.

I heard a girl say she was cheating today, and I knew what she meant right away (she was talking about food, so it wasn’t tough to figure out). Cheating on whatever diet she was on. Cheating, as in, she wasn’t supposed to be eating something.

Said food was not going to have an immediate bad effect on her health. This wasn’t a a food allergy situation or something similar. This was a “my strict diet says I can’t have this.”

I hate that foods have become bad. I hate that we “cheat” with food. I wish we could just eat. I wish we could look down at the food on our plate and say “wow, that looks awesome.” Whether it’s a salad or a plate of french fries. Because if we ate a plate of french fries last night, we probably won’t eat one the next day. It would all balance out. But instead we put ourselves on strict diets and feel guilty when we “cheat.” The diet industry repeatedly makes us feel like we’re not good enough, WHILE failing repeatedly, but we keep going back to it. Crazy masochists, that’s what we are.

Anyway. Rant over. The food!

I brought my lunch again today. The fish is the frozen marinated mahi-mahi fillets from Trader Joe’s. They were really good, although the tuna ones are still my favorite. Plus brown rice.

And a salad. It was just romaine, lettuce, cucumber, and Annie’s balsamic. It felt plain and boring. I’m still not sold on Annie’s balsamic flavor, but I’ll probably use up the bottle. I may try making my own soon.

I munched on grapes all afternoon as a snack. I love doing that. I’m definitely a volume eater, so I love the process of eating many little grapes.

I didn’t buy or make any good snack foods this week, and I definitely felt it around 5pm. Lunch was a little light, and I was starving when I got home. I had a bag of popcorn. Forgot to take a picture! I was too hungry.

Dinner was brown rice, black beans, and mexican cheese.

With sour cream, of course. My second favorite condiment. My heart belongs to ketchup first.

I’m off to eat more pudding and cuddle with the boyfriend!

Croissant Madness

So today when I walked into work I saw this sitting on my desk.

This isn’t totally unusual. I don’t walk in to work to see a croissant sitting on my desk 3 times a week or anything, but food is often around.

I felt bad, and unsure of what to do, because I didn’t actually want it. I had my delicious filling breakfast cookie cereal and green smoothie. I felt good. And while pastries are at the top of my list of tasty food items, I wasn’t feeling it today. So I took two bites (it was pretty good, would have been better if it were filled with chocolate, but no croissant is perfect), and then, when no one was looking, I tore off half, wrapped it in a tissue, and tossed it in the trash.

After I did it I couldn’t decide if that was totally normal thing to do. Part of me thought I was keeping my food issues to myself, not hurting anyone’s feelings, and keeping the boat nice and steady at work. No rockin’ here. Another part of me thought I was being a crazy psycho who couldn’t say “oh, no thanks, I’d rather not have a croissant today.” I still haven’t decided.

I had a later lunch today, so I broke out the Pop Chips I had packed. I was not a fan of the salt and pepper flavor. The barbeque flavor is delicious, but these not so much. I ate about 5, then stopped.

It was blazing hot again, but since exercise has been nonexistent in my life lately, I decided to walk to my food. Chipotle is about a mile round trip, a walk many of coworkers think is insane. East Coasters are laughing their butts off right now, no doubt. Anyway, I got the burrito bowl. Lettuce, black beans, tomato salsa, guac (best guac ever), cheese, and sour cream. I consider the rice an essential part of the burrito, but I don’t care for it in the bowl.

For dinner I had a repeat of last night, the pita pizza. Plus a beer this time.

I love Bud Light Lime. Not the classiest of beers, but so tasty!

New dinner idea is in order for tomorrow. My pita pizzas are not coming out as good this week.

I think I’m going to make some pudding for dessert. I’m totally feeling chocolate pudding right now.

Too cool for Gluten

The Wall Street Journal had a really interesting article in the “Personal Journal” section today about people going gluten free to lose weight.

I read 4 papers a day as part of my job (by read I mean skim). It’s actually one of my favorite parts of my job because I always know what’s going on. Plus I get to feel super smart and say things like “I read 4 papers a day.” Because that’s not annoying.

Anyway. I got all tingly when I saw the article, as I usually do when I spot health/nutrition articles that do not involve the words “lose 10 pounds by sunset.” I especially liked this one because I have definitely seen it in action around Los Angeles,

The article basically says that if indeed you have Celiac disease (the fancy shmancy word for people who shouldn’t have gluten), then a gluten-free diet is the way to go. Revolutionary stuff. But the interesting part of the article is that fact that people have been using it as a way to lose weight. It’s a nasty side effect of the whole carbs=bad thing. But, turns out these gluten-free products are not lower in fat or carbs or any of the other things that send people into a tizzy. In fact, in some cases, they may not be that healthy at all.

I had already noticed this trend around LA. Gluten-free products have popped up everywhere. Now, this is great for my friend who has a wheat allergy, and my friend who is actually a celiac,  but it doesn’t quite make sense that I’ve noticed girls buying them to try and lose weight. To me, this is just another way of proclaiming that carbs are bad. I’m all for doing a little experimentation to see if eliminating gluten from your diet makes you feel better, but let’s be honest. That’s not what’s going on here.

I feel like the “gluten-free” label has become like the “fat-free” label. They splash it on products to mean “healthy.” These gummy bears are FAT FREE! Fat-free doesn’t mean good, it just means it has no (or a trivial amount) of fat. Gluten-free doesn’t mean healthy, it means there’s no gluten. This is all a symptom of our diet-obsessed society. We’re so desperate to find the newest quick-fix way to lose weight that we are latching on to products made for people with allergies. Allergies that we don’t have.

It’s actually really silly, when you think about it.

Hot Amy, Cold Cheese

We’re having a heat wave in Los Angeles right now, so of course our air conditioning broke last night. I bought this on my lunch break.

Hopefully the landlord sends someone to fix it soon.

Since it was toasty and uncomfortable outside I decided the best thing to do was eat outdoors. My coworker said it was too hot to eat outside, but I’m crazy like that. I’m from Texas. I’m tough. However, the Beverly Hills wimps weren’t so tough. I was all alone.

All alone

Alright, a few people showed up about half an hour later, but I was still amused.

To the food!

Fish and brown rice. The fish is a frozen tilapia, but it’s pretty good for frozen fish. It has a nice lemon flavor.

A simple salad with just romaine, cucumbers, carrots, herbed goat cheese, and Annie’s balsamic. It was my first time trying Annie’s balsamic, and I wanted to love it. I didn’t. I’m going to try again tomorrow without the goat cheese. I might have actually burnt myself out on the stuff (gasp!).

Diet Coke and Jello Mousse. I know. Neither are particularly good choices. First time trying the Jello Mousse. It looked better in the commercials. Me and Diet Coke have met many times before.

I got home and immediately headed for the blondies I made last night. Which is interesting, since I didn’t particularly like them. I used light brown sugar instead of dark because it was all I had and they just weren’t the same. But I chowed down on one anyway. Then I promptly threw them away. Why was I eating something I didn’t even like? Food insanity is rearing it’s ugly head here.

A glass of wine followed to accompany the pizza making. I drank less than half of what I poured. I was hot and a fruit fly decided to make my glass it’s home.

It was pita pizza night! I love pita pizza.

First, the ingredients:

I measured the cheese because I can get overexcited with delicious mozzarella.

Into the oven:

Cheesy goodness ready for munching:

It actually wasn’t as good as usual. The cheese didn’t melt quite right, but I took it out of the oven because it had been 15 minutes. It was still pretty tasty though.

I’m off to continue the tortuous process of editing my novel. That or watch True Blood. We’ll see how it goes.

Vampires, Secret Agents, and Fake Sugar

Happy Sunday! It’s only 1:30 PM and I’ve already done by weekly Sunday grocery store trip, so I’m feeling pleased with myself. More time for procrastination and bread making this way.

Last night I went out to dinner for a friend’s birthday party. We went to Blue Dog Tavern, which is a tiny place in Sherman Oaks with a nice selection of beers. I mentioned last night that fish and chips were in my future, but I decided it was too heavy with beer. They had a vegan sandwich that sounded delicious — hummus, avocado, some sort of tasty lettuce, and cucumber on 9 grain bread. The menu said it came with a side salad but the waitress gave me a choice that included french fries.

French fries. Oh yes.

Not the  best picture. Be patient with me, I’m still learning.

I love potatoes. Especially when they are cut up and fried and dipped in delicious ketchup. I’m not going to get into my ketchup obsession right now. I don’t think we have time.

Anyway. The sandwich was totally delicious. The service at Blue Dog is pretty terrible, but I would go back for that sandwich. And the beer, naturally.

We went back to a friend’s house to watch an episode of Buffy (I told you I was a nerd), and then Boyfriend and I came home and watched an episode of Chuck (no, really. Total nerd). And then the weekend late night sugar tradition continued. It’s not a healthy tradition. In fact, it’s one I’ve been trying to do less of. Cookies and margaritas.

See how it says BIG on the package? They mean it. BIG cookies. We only made 4.

The Hungry Girl Margarita.

The Hungry Girl Margarita is my fault. Boyfriend always buys the pre-made margarita mix in a bottle, which is neither very good or very low-calorie. In fact, it’s more like sugar spiked with more sugar with a hint of lime. While I’m not crazy about Hungry Girl’s “all diet food all the time” mentality, the girl does know how to make drinks. The recipe calls for Diet Lemon Lime Soda (Sprite or 7-Up or whatever you like) AND Crystal Light. Two fake sugars in one drink, which made me uncomfortable. But I tried it anyway. It’s totally delicious. It’s like key lime pie in a cup. With tequila. Not healthy, just low-calorie. But at least I know the difference now.

Baby steps.

A new camera!

I bought a new camera today, a Canon SD1300IS. It’s just a point and shoot, but I haven’t owned a camera in years. During the years I was really heavy I avoided cameras like the plague. I’m still not totally camera-happy, but I decided if I was serious about this blogging thing I better get one.

I will hopefully post a better “after” picture in my weight loss section soon. I don’t have any in between photos because (1) no camera (as previously mentioned) and (2) My weight loss wasn’t spread over several years. I look pretty much the same now as I did when I originally lost the weight a few years ago. Which I think is a good thing.

I’m off to play with my new camera. I believe beer sampler and fish and chips are in my future!

First Post — Bagels and the People in my Head

I feel pressure about this whole first post thing. What do I say? Do I jump in like people are actually going to be reading this? I talk to myself all the time, so maybe it’s like that. Yes, let’s do that.

Dear Good People in my Head,

I feel I solved the whole “Bagel Problem of 2010″ today. See, I’ve never been a big bagel person. I grew up in Texas. My mom made me breakfast tacos full of eggs and potatoes and bacon, not a bagel with cream cheese. I think I was in my 20′s before I ever even tried cream cheese.

I came to appreciate bagels in Boston. They were no breakfast taco, but they were tasty in their own way. I didn’t make a special trip, but if they were around, what the heck?

Now, they’re at my work every Friday. A big basket of bagels from The Nosh of Beverly Hills. For a community who seems obsessed with not eating, Beverly Hills knows how to do food. Never on the “I don’t eat carbs” boat, I embraced this whole free bagels thing wholeheartedly.

Turns out, a whole bagel with cream cheese makes me feel kind of sick for the rest of the day. I don’t know if it’s the bagel or the cream cheese or the combination of the two, but I always felt kind of icky afterwards.

Now, oddly enough, it took me several weeks to process this. I was distracted by the FREE FOOD thing. I’m a talent agency assistant. FREE = GOOD. Also, BAGEL = TASTY.

I struggled this morning with these two thoughts as the “Happy Bagel Friday!” email went out. I wanted a bagel. I was hungry. I had only eaten half of my oatmeal pancake this morning in my rush to get out the door on time. Yes, the other half was in my purse, but BAGEL. Tasty wheat bagel. It was sort of healthy, right? And in my quest to not be obsessed with calories I shouldn’t fret over the calories in one bagel. Right, People in my Head?

And, then, an epiphany. Half a bagel. Wasn’t I always satisfied with half a bagel and kept eating because it was there? Maybe half a bagel wouldn’t make me feel sick all day. Hunger would be satisfied by my FREE FOOD.

I understand this seems simple to you, dear People in my Head, but some days I’m still struggling with diet think. Eating a whole bagel or a plate or egg whites. No in between. No portion control. All or nothing.

But today the Great Bagel Problem was solved. Half a really delicious wheat bagel satisfied my hunger and did not make me feel sick at all. Captain Obvious is in the corner rolling his eyes, but I’m thrilled.