BLE: Soup's on

Breakfast this week will be steel cut oats cooked with a little almond extract. I have six portions weighed out with peanut butter, flaxmeal, and pumpkin pie spice and each morning I'll choose my fruit. There are bananas, frozen blueberries & peaches, canned pears, apples, and pumpkin to choose from. Or maybe I'll use part frozen blueberries and then something fresh on the side - the oranges and grapes are so good right now.

Today's Food

b)  oatmeal, PB, flaxmeal, blueberries & a small  yellow mango

l)   green salad blend w\ chick peas, pepitas, artichoke hearts & oil & rice wine vinegar

d)  zucchini, spinach, tomato, onion, carrot & hominy stoup w\ black beans, pecans

I still have a large tub of salad in the fridge for lunches, and I think I will stick with making veggies stoups for dinners, enough for two portions at a time. Tonight's batch will use up the last of the refried black beans, and in combination with the tomatoes and zucchini it will give it a minestrone feel. Oh, and I'll use fresh thyme and sage from the back yard to sauté the onions - that always makes for a great start. One more thing about the soup, I'll also be a little heavy handed using the mushroom mix (dried mushroom, sage, red pepper) another key component to getting the depth of flavour I want. 

Please notice there is no dairy listed with my meals. I'm enjoying the PB, nuts, and seeds in combination with the beans for my protein. I'll finally be pulling the lentils out of the freezer to use in some of my stoups too.

I must be getting out and about, it's too pretty a day to be inside.

BLE: Tank tops, a great motivator

Yesterday was almost Bright, with just a little blurring of a line. I hadn't had a fat with dinner, and it had been a lean bean stoup, and I was 'wanting something'. I ended up with a spoonful of peanut butter. So basically I broke the snacking line by not having my fat with dinner. No biggie in the greater scheme of things. And it was another Dairy Free day, as is today. Go me.

Today's Food

b)  chia pudding w/banana &  blueberries

l)   potatoes & corn w\gravy, pepitas and an apple

d)  green salad blend w\ pinto beans, pepitas, artichoke hearts & oil & rice wine vinegar

For lunch today I stopped at Sprouts on the way to the office and picked up mashed potatoes w\gravy, roasted corn w\ jalapeno, a bag of salted, roasted pepitas, and a SugarBee apple. I made my lunch at work, nothing was weighed, but it looked right and I am counting it as a one-plate Bright meal. Yes, I know there was probably a little flour in the gravy, but there wasn't much and for sure not in the top three ingredients of the meal I put together. 

I have found my motivation to stay Bright in the tank tops I have been wearing. Seeing my less than stellar arms makes it easier to say no to NMF knowing I will want to wear a bathing suit at some point this Summer, at least in Hawaii if not before to get a base going; my current farmer's tan will need to be remedied at some point.

Group was good this morning; hearing positive reporting from everyone and knowing we are all working towards the same goal is a great source of determination. My big note of the day says, "manage your buttons so no one else can push them."  We also chatted about stories, and how they engender suffering while what actually happened didn't really mean so much as all of the shade thrown about in the telling later. 

Time to rest after a busy day. Dinner is made and waiting for me in the fridge so I just need to kill a half an hour. Sounds like my turn on the Switch.

BLE: Clean and Bright

The Chia 'pudding' I prepped last night was good. I heated up some frozen blueberries, then added them to the pudding and warmed my bowl up for another minute. It was thinner than anticipated, and at first the texture threw me off a little, but I enjoyed the little crunchy bits from the peanut butter, and the flavour was spot on. Of course adding blueberries to peanut butter is always a winner in my book no matter the vehicle getting it to me.

Today's Food

b)  chia pudding w/banana &  blueberries

l)   spring mix salad w\ garbanzo beans, cauliflower & green onions, apple

d)  Carrot, tomato, onion, hominy, spinach stoup with more refried black beans

Dinner is a repeat from last night; it was good and there are leftovers to use up. The fridge is packed this morning, full of the offerings from Imperfect Produce - I'll be cooking this weekend! That being said, I am moving away from preparing such large batches so I get more diversity in my meals. Three days in a row of the same thing is enough.

Feeling good this morning; no dairy yesterday and no snacking last night. Sort of a clean feeling which, I must say, bodes well for repeating the experience again today.

I also made it out for a walk with Cal yesterday, not a long one, but long enough he almost didn't make it home on his own two feet. My hips didn't freeze up at all, which was a relief, and I'm hoping we make it out again today. He is currently curled up resting in his new favorite spot - his sister's loft bed- but hopefully I can entice him down in a bit.

In the meantime there are chores to do; watering, picking up, prepping my lunch salad, so I am glad for this small space of time to myself.

BLE: No dairy and no chewing

It was a ten-plate day trying to find something for Cal to eat. We started the morning by baking some 'pirate pie', otherwise known as corn bread, and I ended my shift with a PB&J going stale on his plate.  His Mom medicated him in the afternoon and he did wake up from a nap with some appetite. Part of a quesadilla and a donut later and he was his usual evening banshee self; your typical four year old making sure everyone knows he is the center of our universe.

Today's Food

b)  homemade refried black beans, rice, salsa & an orange

l)   roasted veggies, beans, chicken sausage, an apple

d)  Carrot, tomato, onion, hominy, spinach stoup with more refried black beans

I managed to go the whole day without eating a single raw vegetable! That hasn't happened in a while. Probably a sub conscious rebellion to this weeks vlog from SPT about how important chewing is to our brain health, skull, and satiety. It was really just a fluke, needing to use up the oldest veggies before the imperfect order was delivered I opted for stone soup for dinner.  Using my refried beans for the protein thickened it up enough to classify it as a stoup. It was very good, as any dinner is when  you start by sautéing onions with Montreal Steak Seasoning. I expect my hands will be swollen from the sodium when I wake tonight.

The day was mostly good, and I even made it out to sit in the sun for a half an hour. God I miss that, just laying in the sun and luxuriating in the warmth while relishing the wind as it brushes by in counterpoint. Once upon a time I could do that for hours at a time and be brown as a nut by the time Summer arrived. Now I am grateful for a half an hour to soak up some vitamin D. I guess I should also be grateful that I don't have more age spots than I do considering the volume of time I spent abusing my skin.

I also made it through the day without any dairy, and it feels like progress. Lunch had the last of the sausage in it, so the plan is for no animal protein at all for the next three weeks. I prepped a couple of chia puddings for breakfast, having eating the last of the rice and bean dishes, and I'm looking forward to something new. I split the protein between chia seeds,  peanut butter, and almond milk then added in steel cut oats for the grain portion. Oh, and I smashed up 2.6oz of ripe banana into each one so they should be a little sweet. I haven't decided if I want to add in blueberries or peaches to round out the fruit serving, but I'm sure either will be wonderful. I don't know why I haven't done this before, but I'm hoping it's good enough to be a new regular.

My inner voices weren't too bad today, ignoring the plethora of food choices I laid out for Cal with barely a whimper. And I think we tossed most of the left overs so there won't be anything tempting me from the kitchen tonight. Maybe the corn bread, I'm a little nervous about that and may take it out to the garage before bed. And that's exactly the kind of crazy that makes me... well, crazy.  Normal people wouldn't give it a thought.

Exhaustion creeps up my spine, and I guess I am headed out to the garage.

Go me.

BLE: No Dairy rezoom

I find anger lurking just beneath the surface this morning, my narrator trying to insert false ideas that in theory should justify eating before lunchtime. Wondering about the why dissipates the urge to eat, and instead I am grateful for the lunch that is set out on the counter awaiting mealtime. Instead I am interested in the grumblings of my stomach and thinking about the why of it. My best guess is the heavy dinner that included meat and cheese. I remember something about digesting animal protein, and how once the body is geared up to process it (acid), it craves more of the raw material to keep processing.

What did Fuhrman call it?  Toxic hunger? What I am feeling is not hunger, but the withdrawal symptoms from digesting a toxin - otherwise known as animal protein. God, it's all coming back. The reason I started eating for nutrition, the studies, the science, the moral dilemmas.

In a way it's a good thing, this feeling; the shakes, the stomach growling like a starving bear, the slight flush in my face and the anxiety in my chest. I'm feeling it all, and just knowing it's not hunger helps to calm my mind.

Glancing at the clock I see it's only eight minutes to lunchtime. Thank God.

BLE: Bright if not dairy free

 Anita's is a family restaurant downtown that evokes many memories for me. Dinner with my son, the Wedding Rehearsal dinner for my daughter, and good Mexican food served in a cozy colourful setting. For years the owner would come around saying hello, making everyone feel welcome, checking on the quality of our meals. Tonight is their last night in this location, and if they can't find a new one, the business will close. Why am I bringing this up? Because of course we had to order dinner from them on their last night. And while cheese enchiladas was the first thing to come to mind, I also remembered amazing chili verde, so that is what I ordered. A super burrito, in fact, and I ate it all except for the tortilla. To be accurate, I even ate two bites of that, and practically sucked the sauce off of the rest of it before resigning it to the green waste bowl. 

Was it weighed or measured? No. Was it enough vegetables? No. (I did weigh out 5oz of grape tomatoes to eat afterwards, needing to supplement the veg.) And did it have cheese and sour cream and avocado on it? Yes, yes, and yes. And it was delicious, and I have no regrets. I wonder if I had been two weeks into no dairy instead of 2 days if I would have modified my order. But it was the memories, and the emotion, that guided my choice. That luxurious feeling of giving in to something greater than myself.

But it was a 'one plate meal', and there were no seconds, no chips & salsa, no rice and beans on the side. It's all good, and I feel Bright if not dairy free.

If they do re-open in a new location, I will be more careful about what I order, and by then hopefully it will be a vegan choice. In the meantime, I am fired up to make a healthier version of this favorite. How I will achieve the richness without the pork I am not sure, but it's now on my to do list.

Tomorrow is just another opportunity to start over, which is almost every day for me lately, which has become ... a bore? frustrating? ridiculous? I remind myself that beginning over each day is how I have maintained my loss, and that one of these days I will look back and realize how hard I fought, and how I never gave up, and how that led at last to success in reaching a body that is just the perfect size for me.

I hope, I dream, I am unstoppable.

For sure things will change when Cal is finished with treatment, as we slowly trade out the unhealthy snacks for better options, and quit driving through for fast food as we become less afraid of him losing weight. I am intimidated thinking about what his energy level will be like once the Chemo stops, and needing to keep up with him. I will try to think of it as motivation.

I am still listening to Body in Balance, and realizing that once I am off the dairy I need to cut back on the oil. I want to go back to making salad dressings using nuts and vinegars, fruits and herbs, lemon and spices. Once upon a time I had a Magic Bullet, and the smallest cup was perfect for blending up single serve dressings. I may have to do some retail therapy so I can start doing that again this Summer when salads will be on the rise.

My teeth are a little achy from their cleaning at the dentist this afternoon, and I'm a little tired from the day's work, as usual, and just need to stay up enough longer to finish my Sweet & Spicy sleepy time tea before calling it a day.

What the hell, it's almost ten, I'm calling it.

Day.