June 27, 2016 Update

This is life I went on vacation in the US. I was only away for one night and five meals of eating out later. I felt pretty bad when I came back still on vacation while I was at home I spent half of it sleeping I barely had energy to get out of bed. At the same time my six month blood test was due so I went and got that done. Got called to the dr and pretty much like a tv show in a more professional manner told me to go on a diet and come back in a year. There was a big change in my cholesterol numbers not for the good. The explanation for why I have been extremely tired is my iron levels lowered almost back to the pre iron pill days. I had switched brands of iron pills so back to the old brand. I do think the reason for the change was 6 months ago I was drinking shakeology daily and I have barely drank it lately. I drank it the last 4 days and I do feel better. Not to the capacity where i have the energy to do more than get through the day but still better than I was feeling. Came back from the dr with a slightly higher dose of thyroid medication as well. Since the vacation I haven't really cooked or done a beachbody workout. I am hoping that I will get some energy and some motivation soon I really do want to lose the weight before my next vacation. This past week has been the week I have been dreading the most since my dad died the first anniversary. The initial stages there are so many people around and I was in a daze there was so much to do and keep occupied with there was no time to feel bad. The first anniversary however is the time when all the work is done and the only people that understand this are people that have been through it themselves I spent a lot of time reading people's stories on google during my commute. It is also the omg its been one year and I haven't lost the weight I gained since my dad initially got sick. My family doesn't talk about that kind of thing and the only mention of it really came from a reminder facebook post that I had posted a year ago but I did get a reminder of how I haven't lost the weight thanks mom. I couldn't get the day off work and had to attend a really important conference I kind of spent the bus ride being sad and composing myself to get through the day with the hope I could go home and be myself after work. No luck there my kidnapper (that is what I call my best friend) and sister decided that I needed to run errands that night with no choice. I am sure a bit of it was a cover just not to leave me alone as they were there with me through everything last year but nothing was said so by the time I did get home it was 11pm and I was wiped emotionally and physically. Now that the day has gone I really know that it is time for me to commit to getting fit but I am not really sure why I am still procrastinating.  I have walked a lot in the last few days but still haven't done a beachbody workout. At the same time one of my friends from when I was a kid that I am not intouch with anymore posted a picture of herself with abs on facebook she said that was her goal after having two kids. She was always skinny but this was like movie star abs I asked her how she did it she said beachbody workouts and eating lots of protein and just treating food as fuel for your body she says she doesn't look like that anymore but tries to be healthy now. I have no desire to look like that but I definitely feel like a lazy bumb comparing to that. I just want to lose 10-15 pounds and send my muffin top on a one way journey. I have been trying to read up on thyroid diets since that is an issue that is affecting me but so far I have come up with a bunch of foods that I can't eat and if I cut those out of my diet i am not really sure what I would be left with to eat. Since i haven't cooked lately here is the kind of meal I was eating at home on my vacation keep in mind this was a vacation diet not my regular one salad was still courtesty of subway which these days I eat a lot of subway salads. I ate the fries at the same time as the other plate. This is an english muffin, with an egg fried in ghee (clarified butter), tomoto, avocado, salad and hummous for dressing, the fries are frozen frites from costco sea salt and black pepper.

Pressure Cooker Pasta and June 11 week update

There isn't much to say on the fitness front I don't think I did a workout this week. Why? At the beginning of the week it was really hot unusual for this time of year so I just wanted to sleep after that I was super busy at work and was getting home really late the super hot days I also didn't do the morning walk that I have been doing. I didn't have the energy to workout. I know excuses and I shouldn't let things get in the way of working out but they do. I really need to work on the time I get to bed as I don't get enough sleep and then hopefully switch to morning workouts. I was pretty good on my diet this week those chickpeas made a good addition to my lunch wraps all week and I managed to drink shakeology a few times I am not back into the everyday it. In the end I did put on a pound this past week I know my body needs that workout to really energize it. This week's recipe I made up I read a few pressure cooker lasagna recipes but I didn't want to spend money on ingredients since I didn't know if it was going to workout. I bought the lasagna noodles, the jar sauce, and some cheese slices all were on a pretty good sale so just a few dollars if I had to waste anything. To my surprise it turned out great. Next time I would add less water and maybe the cheese a little earlier. Next time I would also add some fresh veggies, some veggie meat, maybe some ricotta.
I put 2 cups of water in the pressure cooker pot, 5 lasagne noodles that I broke into pieces with my hands, a small jar of rose sauce and set the timer for 17 minutes then I released the steam and opened up the cooker. I tried the pasta it was good so then I added frozen europe best grilled veggies and 3 cheese slices (1.5 mozzerala, and 1.5 marble) and set the timer for another 7 minutes. What happened to the other half of the cheese slices? I ate them. Today I heard on the radio that cheese has now been proven as addictive as drugs because of the amount of milk protein that is needed to make it. After 5 minutes I could hear the sauce boiling in the cooker so I turned it off. It tastes great the noodles are a good texture. The only problem is that is a little watery but it tastes like pasta not soup. I will definately be using this recipe again.  The next day the sauce has thickened up and it still tastes great. My mom says when she makes pasta in the pressure cooker she only puts in a few tablespoons of water I will try that next time.

June 5, 2016 Pressure Cocker Chickpeas that turned in Hummous

This week I haven't been very good I was out a lot and nothing in the workout world was memorable. I mostly did easy 10 minute workouts and skipped a few. I ate out a bit too much and no results this week but I haven't put on any weight either. I did buy an electric pressure cooker. I have never used a pressure cooker but I have tried to use my mom's old manual one before and I could never push down hard enough for the lid to close. I miss my multi-cooker so I thought this would be a good replacement. This is a lot bigger than I expected it to be I bought it from TSC when it was on sale.

After googling what I could make I thought chickpeas. I have never cooked a dry bean before I make a trip to my mom's house and make her cook them for me usually. I soaked the beans overnight didn't realize they would expand that much it started as a handful. I ended up going out unexpectedly the next day so they sat in the fridge so they soaked for over 15 hours.

 I didn't have much spices so I bought this spice mix as it should have everything that was needed

The instructions said to put 3 cups of water in the pressure cooker first then add ingredients so I did that. I put the water in, a chopped onion, the spice mix and squeezed some fresh lemon juice in there. It said to turn the timer to 15 minutes. This pressure cooker does not make noise it took a while for it to work so it was over 30 minutes before the 15 minutes was up. The cooker had turned to warm before I checked on no alarms on this one like my other gadgets. It also took me awhile to figure out that I had to vent this after letting it sit turned off for awhile. Around 45 minutes after I started I opened the lid and felt that it needed more cooking time. I set another 15 minute timer. Over an hour from the start my chickpeas were cooked but the water didn't evaporate and the seasoning not that tasty. I had to much water in there next time I will try with a cup of water. It was night so I drained off the water and put the peas away to deal with the next day.

The chickpeas wer tasty and a good texture just not the curry I was expecting to be eating. The next day I transformed this into humous the indian seasoning and the onion are not noticeable so this didn't taste wierd. I put the chickpeas, lemon juice, cilantro, salt, pepper, and olive oil in the magic bullet blender and pureed.

It ended up being a pretty tasty Humous which made a great dressing to my subway salad. Its super hot today no way I am turning on anything that will make my place hotter.

May 29,2016 Cashew Nut Dressing

I have decided to try and continue this blog as my friend told me she wants me to. It makes me at least make something each week so I can post a recipe here. This week I did do a few more workouts than in  the past. I did hammer and chisel one day last week and I loved it because it is like playing a game of simon says. Your brain is thinking about something else the whole time and you kind of forget that you are doing a hard workout. I did brazilian butt lift another day and found it really boring. I only did 5 beachbody workouts this week and some were 10 minutes or less but it is better than the three I was doing in the past. I skipped workouts on thursday and friday my stomach has been hurting and that was prevening me from sleeping. Things are better today. Yes excuses excuses. In that spirit I have a grandfathered gym membership which is why I haven't cancelled it yet but I haven't been to the gym for months. Today I went to decide if I should keep it or I should cancel it. There is equipment at my gym that i haven't found anywhere else that I really like and another reason I go to the gym is there is a lot of eye candy there. I have never really met anyone at the gym but I like to look. I went to a party yesterday and the girls there were saying they like the social experience of the gym meeting their friends etc I don't know anyone that goes to my gym and it is intimidating to try and make friends there.   Today I found the gym extremely boring I have never been on a sunday afternoon before. I felt that when I do beachbody workouts those trainors are yelling at me to keep going even if its through the computer or as Shaun T says he can see me ahhh. I felt alone at the gym which normally I like but felt like even though I did a circuit to start I didn't give it my all. I still like that equipment. It was okay but I think beachbody on demand is my favorite. For the gym first I have to get dressed, then I have to drive there and I don't like driving and today I had trouble finding parking, then I have to touch other people's sweat and wait for machines, and other people look at me but I am doing the same back. There are a lot of younger people at my gym and there is a definately that old high school feel sometimes where everyone is competitive with each other without actually talking to them. In the end I updated my credit card before I started and they messed up my payment so I won't get the credit for another month so essetiantly I have paid for two more months of the gym. The experiment will continue is it better if I go on another day of the week. I may just love beachbody on demand to much I workout in my house, in my pajamas.  I haven't really lost any weight in pounds this week but there is a slight change in my body shape. My diet could have been better and I know what I will work on I haven't been drinking shakeology and I got another box I thought I had stopped my shipment but I guess not I will have to figure out when to drink it. On that note I have been seeing a lot of vegan cashew nut ranch dressing recipes lately so of course I started with that and made something completely different. My local nut store sells fresh nuts and today they had roasted lime and saffron cashews so that is what I started with. I believe they dry roast the nuts and only use fresh spices on them but I have not asked them to confirm this yet so I am not certain. They do the roasting in the back of the store so maybe next time I see the owner I will ask him. I was only doing a test run so I just made a small batch but turned out to be a lot. One of my lazy things to do now is go to subway and get a salad with dressing on the side this salad last me a few days as I eat it with other things. This dressing went really nicely with that salad it was a lat night snack but I felt it was indulging even though it wasn't.

Soak nuts in water for an hour (I used a handful of nuts and a quarter cup of water)
Add lemon (I used organic lemon so there is a lot of juice and seeds (don't add those)
Add spices use what you like as my nuts were already seasoned I added pepper, chili salt, and fresh cilantro.
If i had some chives, garlic or onion powder that would have been a good addition.
Mix in your blender
I found that mixture was too watery so I added half an avacado
The result is this nice creamy dressing which tasted great.

Life update - should I continue with this blog?

A friend of mine is ecouraging me to continue this blog. It has been over a year since my last post so this leads me to analyze why I stopped writing this one. I let life get in the way of my weight loss journey. My dad was diagnosed with leukaemia and a heart condition within a week of each other, then it was a stressful year of being in and out of hospital then hospice until he finally passed away. I was fortunate as I had an understanding employer but I still had to get the work done even though I didn't have to be in the office full time. I would usually go to the hospital in the morning then go to work or work at home in the evening this with the stress and not sleeping wasn't the best combination. I should have never stopped working out or eating right but I was emotionally and physically drained all the time, I didn't have the energy to continue. I never stopped walking because that is something I love to do but I did inherit a car so now I had options where before I was forced to walk.  It has been almost a year now since my dad passed away and I am finally getting back on track. I put on at least 20 pounds probably 30 in that one year. In addition I had extremely low iron and got diagnosed with hypo thyroid. I went on synthroid and for the first few months this also made me exhausted and I never felt well. Until I realized that I was drinking shakeology for breakfast and it is high in iron it was conflicting with the thyroid medication. Thyroid and iron shouldn't be taken together. I was taking the iron at night and the synthroid in the morning. Things got better once I stopped drinking shakeology for breakfast but that leads me to my new problem what do I eat for breakfast and when do I drink shakeology. I would really love to drink shake as my 3pm snack as this is my craving time at work. The problem is shakeology unblended isn't very good and in my work place I can't make the noise of a blender. I know in the past I used to use the shakeology bottle and it would be okay I use that as my water bottle now. There was a time I tried having shakelogy for dinner I get home late and thought that was a good idea but I tend not to be consistent with it that way there is always something else I want to eat at dinner. I have lost almost 10 of those extra pounds I put on in the last year now but I am stuck and having trouble staying consistant with the workouts or the eating right. This blog did help me stay on track in the past. The other update is my dvd player broke so there was no more putting my beachbody dvd's in that. The good news is beachbody on demand came out which is something I love there are so many options for workouts there. I can choose a different one each day and not run out of a different workout for a year. The problem with this is I am a procrastinator so first I have to turn on my computer to get to beachbody on demand. This leads me to look at other things on the internet. If I get past that point I then have to chose which workout I want to do if the workout of the day is more than 30 minutes I have to go through the whole library of free workouts and decide which one. By this time the hour I set aside for working out is long gone and some days that leads to not doing any some days it leads to a very short workout. I never regret the workouts after they are done but I have trouble getting there. So far i have done a few turbo fire and turbo jam workouts they are really fun. I have tried cize and 22 minute hard corps when it was the workout of the day to my suprise I loved 22 minute hard corps and didn't like cize. Even though I am a wimp and would think I would prefer a dance workout to a military training bootcamp it was the opposite.  I don't really want to buy any new workouts since I have so many options already but those purchases used to help me stick with a workout at least enough to get my money's worth I may have to purchase 22 minute hard corps waiting for a few more trial workouts. I still love T25 and it is loaded in my beachbody on demand library so it is one of my many options every day. Anyways if only I could stop procrastinating and get back to the point where i was addicted to doing a workout everyday I know I could lose more weight. I still have a long way to go to get back into shape. Oh yeah that other problem I am always out of breath before I could run for the bus and be fine now I can't speed walk without being out of breath I am not sure which of my problems this is from maybe its from all the extra fat.  Right now I am consitentally at getting a workout out done three days a week and excuses for the other four days am hoping to get consistent at at least five days a week. When my friend suggested I continue with this blog I asked if she liked it she said she liked the recipes and then I had another excuse not to I haven't cooked for awhile. I will leave you with yesterday's breakfast (really brunch that's why its so big), and let me know do you want to see more posts on this blog?
Veggie Omelette
my cooking has been limited lately I took the cooked mushrooms, onions, and sweet potatoes from my mom's house. I added that to a pan with ghee (clarified butter) I was originally going to make a hash but decided later to make an omelette that's why the pan isn't meant for omelette's. I put two eggs in my magic bullet with a little bit of cream so they got whipped and then poured it over the veggies. Then I made the mistake of trying to flip it otherwise it would have looked kind of like a pancake omelette. I should have just folded it over and let it cook. Instead I ended up with a scrambled egg no worries only impressing myself put a little avacado fan over the top and myself was impressed.
Recipe
      make someone else give you cooked veggies :-)
      saute the  cooked veggies in a pan
      whip two eggs, sesoning (salt, pepper, whatever you like)  and a bit of cream (or water)
      mix by hand or a blender whatever is easiest I used a magic bullet
      Pour over veggies and turn down the heat let omelette cook
      gently move eggs in so the liquid cooks
      when omelette is half cooked add some cheese if you like and fold over
      Let it cook for another minute or so until it is ready to eat