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.