Thursday 30 July 2009

Argh — I am so bloody frustrated at the lack of GOOD natural light in this house! All my pictures from today came out so terrible. I’m really, really annoyed. I’m going to investigate setting up a lightbox just so I can take photos that aren’t so damn awful! I suppose winter is frustrating like that – the morning light isn’t strong enough to reach the table, and at night, there is no sun and my house is quite dark (and yellow-tinted). Boooo! I am so annoyed! Oh well.

I’m going to work back through the past few days of food in the following posts… I’ll datestamp them to reflect the actual dates.

Anyway. On with the show.

Breakfast this morning looked uh-may-zing … until I took it out of the pan, and it totally crumbled into a million pieces! And then my photo came out blurry, so really it’s a big fail. It tasted brill though, and kept me full for hours and hours. Enter: corn, zucchini, tomato, and red capsicum “fritatta” (aka mess), topped with reduced fat feta which, because you were asking, pretty much tastes like rubber – and resembles it texturally, as well! I’m reverting back to regular feta next week… stuff the extra calories. The banana & almond butter became my mid-morning snack as I was totally stuffed after the eggy scramble. I had a cup of tea with skim milk & 1tsp sugar with breakfast, too.

I was reading blogs this morning and someone (I can’t remember who!) had made ricepaper rolls for lunch, so I knew I had to do the same. I don’t put noodles in my ricepaper rolls, so it saves a bundle of calories. Instead, I stuffed mine with avocado, iceberg lettuce, carrot, and cucumber, and dipped in hoisin sauce. They were super delicious and you can expect to see part two tomorrow, as I really need to keep my intake to a minimum tomorrow as I’ll be going out for dinner. I had the leftover carrot & cucumber on the side.

For afternoon snack I had this Gippsland wildberry organic yoghurt – just half a tub – with Sanitarium granola clusters. These are soooooo yummy, but at 210 cals per serve, kind of hefty… so I have a half serve for 105 cals. Perfect for topping yoghurt!

Whilst I was cooking dinner tonight I had a plate of vegies and medium-spicy salsa. I cut up way too many vegies for dinner, so my tummy was a pretty good place for them.

And dinner was simple… pork fillet with caramelised red onion, zucchini, tomato, garlic potatoes, and extra (totally unneeded) steamed veg. Again, blurry pic. I is soz.

I would sell my firstborn child for some icecream right now, which is odd because I’m not really an icecream person much. But, I’m trying to be healthy, so if I can hold off on the craving for a week, Rhys has promised me icecream next Thursday… nevermind the fact we were meant to be getting icecream tomorrow after dinner! But oh well

Monday 27 July 09: Ipod pics and shitty descriptions

Breakfast: Vegemite toast; roast vegetable frittata (pumpkin, sweet potato, regular potato, carrot, feta cheese & 2 eggs); organic tomato sauce; tea w/ skim & 1tsp sugar

Skinny cap - first good coffee I've had in a month

Pork, stuffing, avocado & lettuce sandwich on Lawson's grainy bread. GIANT BREAD. In foil. nom.

Ham, pumpkin & avocado on a single slice of Lawson's bread. I know, sandwiches aren't snack food, but we're out of fruit.

Cracked pepper beef sausages, salad, noodles. I only ate less than half of this... the rest has been packaged for lunch tomorrow.

+ cup of tea and 1pc 85% Green & Blacks organic chocolate (pic didn’t work).

Exercise: two x 4.25km walk (8.5km total) + Level 1 30 Day Shred w/ 1kg barbells

Holiday hiatus

Just a quick post to say that this blog will probably be on hiatus for the next three weeks whilst I’m in Europe. When I return, I will do a post featuring the food highlights of my trip. Ciao!

Tuesday 23 June 09: Trying to be healthier today

I am so proud of myself – I dragged my butt out of bed this morning and went for a 4k plod. I didn’t run the whole way, partially due to shin splints (damn them!) and the fact that I was running into a massive headwind on the way home, and I kept literally getting blown backwards every time I took a step. It just wasn’t worth it! A good work out anyway – 400 calories burned before breakfast can’t be wrong!

I started my day with a light first breakfast. I’ve decided that the 5 or 6 small meals approach might be a solution to my incessent desire to eat! Unfortunately I forgot to put the card in my camera when I took a photo of my avocado, cottage cheese, and tomato on pumpernickel bread – I wish my camera would tell me when there was no card

After I took Rhys to work and got settled in for the day, I made second breakfast: a cup of tea with skim and agave, and a scramble involving one whole egg and two whites, four button mushrooms, zucchini, and ham.

Lunch came a couple of hours earlier – nothing exciting to see here! I had a sandwich on soy & linseed bread with ham, avo, pickle spread, tomato, and baby cos lettuce – and a little kiwi fruit on the side.

[image to go here - apologies for the lack of pictures, but I have been shaped! I will update with pics tomorrow!]

I’ve been eating a heap of sandwiches and rolls this week!

I began feeling a bit sluggish about 2pm so braved the rain to get a grande skinny cappuccino from Muzz Buzz. I’m not much a coffee fan, but it helps me when I’m feeling really off, and it’s a good appetite suppressant – not normally something I’d care about, but I’m feeling craaaaappppy this week.

[image]

Another snack about 4.30pm for some pre-gym energy: a pink lady apple with 1tbs peanut butter. Not the healthiest way to eat an apple, but I’m not the hugest apple fan at the moment. Does anyone else go through real phases when it comes to fruit?

[image]

Tonight, we are going to Rhys’s mum’s house for dinner, so there probably won’t be any food pics. We’ll be going to the gym for a quick session beforehand; as I mentioned yesterday, I will be doing a half-hour walking hill climb session, provided that I can get a treadmill (never a given at peak hour!). Tomorrow I’m taking the three-ish hour drive down south to see my sister. She is a highschool teacher and lives in Busselton, a nice beachside town. I’m looking forward to doing my exercise down there, but it’s sure to be horribly windy! I hope my new Garmin arrives before I go! I’ve been thinking all day about what food I want to take down to eat on the journey. Driving long distances makes me huuuuungry, and I want to avoid the lure of the highway roadhouse. I’m going to stop at a food court, Spencer Village, on the way – I never go here as it’s too far away to justify, but I can do a slight detour on my drive south to stop in and get some nums. I’m thinking some sushi… but what else? This food court does phenomenal big steamed buns filled with a combination of pork, chicken, vegies, egg, and yummy savoury-sweet char siu sauce, but I’m absolutely sure they are no good for you! I need something that will be easy to eat in the car, which luckily eliminates most of the other options – it’s a bit hard to eat noodles whilst driving.

So, what should I have with sushi? Rhys and I often get a bit naughty with our food choices when we drive down south – think McDonalds Coke, Twisties, and yummy continental rolls. I want to be healthier this time.

Monday 22 June 09: Not in a happy food place today, TBH.

Despite the fact that my trip is drawing ever closer (less than a week to go! Argh!), I still had a useless day today, not managing to get much work done at all! I will be up late tonight working on stuff for my research job, and then up early tomorrow to run and polish my paper (it needs references, dammit!). This lack of productivity has resulted in one thing and one thing only: boredom snacking. My best days, I’m at uni, in my office, with my head in a book all day – no time to snack mindlessly. On those days, my meals tend to be more balanced and fulfilling. On days like today, however, I’m pretty sure I could eat everything in sight and still not be satisfied.

And this is why I could do to lose a few.

I woke up this morning feeling surprisingly refreshed, considering the fact that I hadn’t managed to get to sleep until almost twelve. I started my day with Vegemite and cottage cheese on soy and linseed toast, and a cup of tea with skim and agave.

As always, lunch came early – around 11. I went for a glass of peach and mango tea (so nice in my freezing house!) with a copy-cat roll from yesterday, but with ham and no avo (so not -that- copy-cat at all, really): low-fat vintage cheese, ham, and pickle spread. Notice that party pie there, too? It may only be 123 calories, but I am a gutso.

The afternoon really slipped by. I went to the fruit and veg market to get some fresh produce, and somehow managed to spend $50 but walk away with very little. I definitely spent far too long in the continental foods section, picking up numerous things I hadn’t planned on buying – pickled red cabbage (inspired by Ashley’s cabbage salad post – thought not at all similar, I’m sure!), wafer squares (these are dangerous! I am addicted to wafers!), pickled mussels in a can, organic pumpernickle-esque bread, and a loaf of cake for Rhys when I am away. My afternoon snack came in the form of a few wafer squares (okay on their own… not so good if you keep going back for more!) and this concoction: cos lettuce, tomato, and pickled mussels on some of the organic bread. That Maccy D’s drink you can see there is definitely a Diet Coke – I needed a pick-me-up, and DC – though made of poison mixed with smelly balls – seemed a good option.

I’m sure that two lunches was not part of my plan for today.

I also had a few wasabi peas during the afternoon. How good are these things? Yet another example of a food that was safe and unwanted when the container was yet to be opened…

Rhys had promised to make shepherd’s pie for dinner, but I decided that, seeing as I was home, I’d get it ready instead. If he was to make it, I’d have to wait too long to eat!! I could (should!) have made this from scratch, but anticipating a busy week, we picked up a Maggi flavour base at the shops on Saturday. I was heavy on the veg as per usual – I always add way more vegetables than meat to every dish we cook (and always more than the recipe recommends!). The effect is two-fold: we get more bang for our buck (a good tactic for big eaters!), and we get lotsa nutrients. Into my shepherd’s pie went carrot, onion, okra (the first time I’d used this!), celery, and fresh tomato, as well as 400g lean beef mince. I didn’t make enough potato, however, and at the last minute decided to make four mini pies instead of one big pie – meaning I only used about half the filling. I will make the remaining filling into a pie tomorrow that Rhys can have whilst I’m away. I served up the pie with some oven-baked squash of some sort – it was spherical, but inside had seeds like pumpkin. I wasn’t impressed by the taste at all! I also served up half cobs of corn (with butter! What the hell, Erin???), and in my case, some of the aforementioned pickled red cabbage. The pies could have done with more flavour – when I pot up the leftovers, I will add some regular Gravox gravy. I doubt I’ll have any of the leftovers – Rhys can dig in whilst I’m down south from Wednesday to Friday.

I’m really not feeling good about my food intake over the past week. I’ve eaten too much of the bad stuff and not enough of the good! It’s reflecting in my weight and my general disposition – one is up and the other is down, and not the way I’d like them to be! I’m going to make an almighty effort to stay on the right path for the next few days until I go away. At least once I’m in Europe, I’ll be walking enough to justify eating a little more (I think I will wear my HRM in order to judge this!). We are eating at Rhys’s mum’s place tomorrow nightso whilst my serve might not be the biggest, we tend not to eat the healthiest food. To combat this, I’m currently planning my other food for tomorrow, and I’ll exericse twice – my training schedule has a 5k easy run pencilled in (urghhh – I just don’t know if I can do that right now!), and in the evening on the way to the inlaws, I’ll do a 30 minute hill walk (inspired by Jenna’s post yesterday) whilst Rhys does a weights session. I need to lift my game, big time.

Sunday 21 June 09: Lunch and an incredibly piggy dinner

Despite my big breakfast, I found myself hungry again by about 1pm – I guess that’s what happens when you burn 800 calories in the morning?? We were so low on fruit & veg at the time, so I whipped up a grainy roll the best I could with limited ingredients: chicken loaf, low-fat vintage cheese, avocado, and pickle relish. Simple, but yummo.

I was soooo hungry waiting for Rhys to get home from the footy. The Dockers lost, but no surprises there! I am an Eagles fan, but it’s always nice for the Dockers to win simply because it means Rhys will be in a better mood after the game. There’s no other reason I’d ever possibly want them to win! A lot of Western Australians support both teams, which I believe is a load of bollocks. One or the other, people. Anyway, for dinner, we totally pigged out. My camera seems to have eaten a couple of the photos though!

We had leftover pizza and pasta from our Saturday night “carbo load” session: smoked salmon pizza, calabrase pizza, rigatoni primavera, and gnocchi bolognaise. It was all as good the second time around as the first! Those bits of pizza are half slices – there was only one of each left, so Rhys and I split them. Can I tell you a secret? I love cold pasta, almost more than when it’s hot. I did warm this up though.

We had predicted that the leftovers from last night wouldn’t be enough… but they were. Regardless, we each still tucked into a couple of Four and Twenty party pies (mmm – indiscernable meat products!), and had a Magnum Ego to round the night off. Yes, we were gluttons, and thoroughly enjoyed it!!

When I get back from Europe, Rhys and I have two months until we go trekking in Peru. We are planning to ‘eat clean’ and exercise our butts off for those two weeks – kind of like a Body Blitz 12 week challenge (Google, my friends) – but only for nine weeks, and without bulkloads of supplements and cheesy photos! I will be ramping up my running and returning to the yoga mat (as well as weights… urgh) and Rhys will carry on his running and gym sessions. Mainly though, we just need to eat better, all the time. Rhys posted an awesome time for his 5k yesterday, without even having that much training – I’m predicting that he could still take a few minutes off his time by the end of the year! He is predicting that I will one day run faster than him if I follow my plan to favour the 5k (I am considering it, for this year at least). I’m not so sure!!

Recap – Saturday 20 June 09

Just quickly, because I’ve got things to get on with!

Rhys and I dropped our friend Brendon at the airport at 11am, and decided we were famished, so we got some brunch at the food court before doing our food shopping. I didn’t know what I wanted and decided something good and spicy was in order, so I got a laksa. It was rubbish. Not true; it tasted good and there was a very healthy seafood to noodle ratio (nice to see they weren’t skimping on the good stuff!), but it wasn’t spicy at all, and laksa is just too unhealthy to justify eating if it’s not burning your face off. As such, I neglected most of the soup and just ate the seafood and noodles. I’ve made a mental note not to get laksa from this place again. Mild laksa is nobodies friend.

I had a sandwich at about 3.30pm, consisting of chicken loaf (mmm… processed miscellania…), gouda, and avocado on soy and linseed bread.

And a Cadel’s Mountain Mix Winners bar. These things are the bomb. I don’t normally eat them right after a sandwich, but I was still hungry and craving something sweet.

And a bucketload of water. This 750mL shaker cup is my standard water-drinking-vessel; I’ve drunk four today since my run! I drink a heap of water – usually more than 3L per day – but lately I’ve been lacking, so I need to work on that.

I don’t have photos, but for dinner we ordered in Italian. Between four of us, we got a smoked salmon pizza, a salami, bacon & vegie pizza, gnocchi bolognaise, and primaveria rigatoni. There are leftovers, so I will have photos from tonight’s meal!

Finally, I am all caught up on posts. Back to regular programming from now.

Recap – Friday 19 June 09: Sushiiiii!

I’m so behind on posting this week. I’ve just been so damn busy!

Okay, Friday. I posted my breakfast on Friday morning, but obvi I have eaten since then. Lunch was another at-work affair; I’d only been planning on staying for a few hours so again didn’t take lunch, but midday rolled around and I was famished, so I grabbed a skinny flat white and a continental roll from one of the cafes at Curtin. It was predictably average.

I’m taking stuff with me to make lunches this week! Truth be told, I will only be in the office for two days, as I’m going to head down to Busselton to see my sister before I go to Europe.

I met Rhys after work to do a bit of shopping – we had to buy some books, so needed to go to Borders. We had dinner at Edo Shiki in Forrest Chase – it’s a sushi train place that also has a la carte and dim sum. Terribly inauthentic, but yummy, so we’ll let it slide! We feasted on the following:

Chicken sushi

Pork dumplings (x4, originally)

Asahi

Squid salad sushi - Rhys surprisingly LOVED this so much. I was so pleased!

Steamed pork buns

Rainbow roll - was meant to be filled with fresh salmon but it was most definitely surimi Still good though!

We had friends over for drinks later that night… no photos of that, but I probably had two glasses of white and a glass of red. An awesome night.

Sunday 21 June 09: A race and out for breakky with the boy

My Sunday morning started a little unconventionally with a 5k race (not that this is at all unconventional amongst food bloggers!!) – part of the Perth Half Marathon festival. I won’t go in to detail, as I’ve written a full (and rather epic!) race report at my other blog, but I’ll just say that I certainly earned my breakfast this morning! I burned almost 500 calories during the 5k run, and just over 300 calories on the 5k walk home (bloody Rhys left without  me – I had threatened at the 2.2km mark to give up and just run home!), so that sausage, bacon & egg bagel that I scarfed down after the race was well and truly deserved (a picture below). For the record, my time was a personal worst (haha!) over 5k, but I’m so stoked with the result. I wasn’t expecting to finish in under 40 minutes (I did!) and I was expecting to come last (I didn’t! I even overtook people!). It was an extraordinarily slow run, but I’ve had a long break and I’m not fit right now, so meh!

I started my morning at 7.30am with a piece of soy & linseed bread with peanut butter, and a little water. I don’t (can’t) eat much before a run.

The race started at 8.15am, and after my walk home, it was about 9.45am. We headed to the Millpoint Caffe Bookstore for breakfast; I had breakfast here a few weeks ago, but Rhys had never been. It’s at the end of our street, and we’ve lived here for 20 months now, so it’s really not good enough of us!

I started with a skinny cappuccino on a mug. I really need to remember to order my coffee in a takeaway cup; I like it super-hot, and coffee in a cup just cools far too quickly (especially on a morning like today… it was only 11 degrees celcius, and we were sitting outdoors!).

Rhys and I shared a serving of the delicio fruit toast (slathered with butter, of course!), and whilst he had the big breakfast, I had the bagel with sausage, bacon, fried egg, and BBQ sauce. I rarely eat fried eggs, preferring poached or scrambled (poached are my fave), but I wasn’t in the mood for being difficult and changing around the order this morning. The picture looks a bit messy because I forgot to take a photo before I started.

Since the race I’ve been chilling on the Net for the past hour or so, and soon I will take Rhys to the footy and get on with my work. I might have a ham & cheese roll in a little while, and for dinner we’re having leftover pizza and pasta from our completely unnecessary carbo loading session last night (it was grand!). I’ve got to do my paid work this afternoon, but it’s totally cruisy – I basically have to trawl the Net for articles and references (I work as a research associate for half a day a week), so I can do it from the warm confines of my bed!

Happy Sunday!

Friday 19 June: Icky poos in Perth today

Today isn’t pretty here in Perth! It’s blustery and rainy and generally not very nice. I woke up this morning craving something hot, and was inspired by Ashley’s frittata. I filled two eggs with 1/4 avocado, two baby Roma tomatoes sliced, two baby bocconcini (also sliced), and about 1tsp grated parmesan cheese. For some reason though I chose to use a pan that was way too small, so I had a few issues when it came to folding the omelet in half. I wish I’d been more patient and added some chunkier vegies to the mix and made a frittata! This could definitely have done with a bit longer cooking, but oh well – still tasted good, even if it was a bit sloppy. I’m going to put a bigger frying pan on my wishlist… We have a tiny-tiny pan (for frying one egg!), a small pan, and a huge pan… but nothing in between. I threw the last of the seven grain sourdough under the grill, and slathered peanut butter all over it. I’m not in the mood for my regular natural PB lately… I’ve been eating Kraft brand (I know, I know!). I also squeezed some organic tomato sauce on the side, but, as usual, barely touched it.

I washed my breakfast down with a tall glass of water. I’m really not a juice person, unless we have something awesome like pomegranate juice… and even then, it will take me well over a week to get through a 1L bottle. What do you drink with breakfast?

I need to get my butt into gear and work out what I’m going to do today. I need to meet with one of my teaching supervisors this morning to hand over and discuss marks. Then… don’t know. I’ve got lots of stuff to do, but little inspiration. Happy Friday