Foot HONGRY!

I thought I was making it up, but apparently I'm not. So, I've been extremely bizarrely HONGRY pretty much ever since I got my appetite back post-surgery. Freakish hunger. As in, today, my nice friend who moved in to take cares of Miss Lady, and who is now officially my non-sexual housewife (that's how those things work anyhow right?), made me 3 eggs, 3 baconssssss, and half a cup of oats with a shit-ton of almonds for breakfast. I ate it around 7:50. By the time class started at 9, HONGRY had happened. This has been going on for weeks.

Anyhoo, while I know that this is partly a result of eating whole foods with a specific focus on low carbs, I also suspected that it had to do with trying to regrow my bones. According to a very reliable source known as the internet or Dr. Google, this is true. You do, in fact, need to increase your intake when you are making broke shit whole again. At least I do. Eatin for two!-- me and me leg.

More anyhoo, I'm gonna ask my doc and my nutritionist (who is still mine even though I don't pay her or see her anymore) about this so my knowledge is more legit. Anecdotally though, dis true.

Eatins Mon the 17th-- Mon 24th

So, super good news--I'm eating healthier and more efficiently than ever. Menus, grocery lists, bulk cooking, yes!  I only have an exact record from the 17th, but pretty much everything has been like this.

Mon 17th
Breakfast-- Eggs cups and oatmeal. WTF is an egg cup? If I haven't been over it, it's a mini-crustless- quiche cup.
Lunch-- Jeffrey's stirfry-- Oh so, I have a BF and he made me a stirfry with pork, brown rice, and assorted veggies. Wasn't half bad for some shit a boy cooked. Ahhahaha!
Dinner-- Chicken and Kale salad from Laura. Also balsamic vinagrette on berries and almonds.
Snack-- 2 bars probably-- Thunderbird or Larabars.

Tues 18th
Egg cups
Jeffrey Stirfry
Steak, with sweet potatoes--mashed, and aspargus drizzled with oil.
Snacks-- probably bars, also some figs

Wed 19th
Bacon, eggs, and oatmeal. I think this was the day of many bacons.
Steak salad with greens and mashed sweet potatoes
Zen-- double chicken, peanut sauce, buddha veggies, and brown rice.
Snacks--bars and bananas

Thur 20th
Eggs cups and oatmeal
Lunch: Beef stew
Dinner: Chipotle-- chicken double, black beans, guac, brown rice, pico, corn.
Snacks-- bars and bananas

Fri 21st
Eggs and bacon and oatmeal with nuts and shit
Chicken vindaloo w brown rice, chick peas, broccoli, and carrots. Mmm.
Salty Sow-- Sangria cocktail, truffled deviled eggs, and split entree of beef cheeks and crispy chicken.
Snack-- 1.25 beers, bars

Saturday
Tacodeli-- 2 Ottos plus COFFEEEEEEEE! Iced with a dropletttte of cream.
Lupper-- Fresa's Mutherfucking Achiote Chicken-- Have you been here? Up on Lamar, y'all. We got-- a whole damn chicken, bunch o beans, rice (that I didn't eat, why world don't have brown rice?), new potato salad, STREET CORN, corn tortillas and delicious sauces. I'm glad no one could see how fast or how sloppily we ate that chicken.
Snack-- Bourbon! It was scary to let go of a little bit of control at this high stress time, but I did it and I'm glad.

Sunday
Tacodeli-- 3 Ottos spread out across the morning. As in I ate one of them a half hour later. What's better than 2 Ottos? Yes, 3 Ottos. Coffee was done had out on the veranda.
Lunch: Starbucks ice tea and Larabar.
Dinner: Chicken Vindaloo with brown rice and veggies and all that.
Late night HONGRY snack-- hummus, carrots, and salami.

Monday-- 3 eggs, 3 bacons, and the shit-ton of oatmeal.
Snack: Larabar
Other snack: banana
Lunch: Fresa's chicken leftovers
Dinner: Zen Seared Tuna salad with a side of STILL HONGRY
Snack: Larabar
Snack: Fake banana based ice- cream ala Joan with high cocoa/low sugar dark chocolate shreds.

So anyhow, or anyhoo, if there's been any blessing to a broke leg, and that's a big IF, it's that it came at a time when I was already eating well, so that I don't have to be stressed AND that I've had to learn to be more organized with the food. If I can keep this up, happy forever.

PS-- I forgot to say that I am taking lots o fish oil, and plan to add in a multi-vitamin. Also Dr. Google said that the silicon in moderate beer consumption could be good, so yeah.

Treat Thinking

Treat thinking. I'm sure you know it, even if you're like so awesome that you don't participate in it (hey...that's me right now...except let's see if I can last till the end of this post) or it doesn't seem to cause a problem for you. Here's a common scenario: I just ran 3,7, 22, or whatever miles; I deserve a treat.

There's two ways of thinking about that. Here's some healthy attitude bullshit that can be hard to sustain in the course of putting up with life's additional bullshit: "Running and the health benefits I receive from it are treats all by theyselves! I don't need to have a chocolate covered chocolate cake."

Another way to think of it is that you do, in fact, deserve a treat. I'm mean, hell yes, you deserve a treat. People are out there having treats without even having gotten off their couch. You burned like 80zillion calories, so you can have a treat. You ran. Despite what you might hear at a Weight Watchers (fuck off) meeting, I think this is okay enough thinking if you are actually willing to do the math. If you really did burn, say 2000 calories, you actually are going to need to take in some additional calories to sustain a healthy consistent metabolism that continues to both burn and fuel your workouts. If you want to position some of these calories as a treat or post-workout reward, I think that's fine as long as it's one of MANY reasons why you did that workout. If every workout is just a path to enchildas, that's probably going to break down at some point. Not that I know from experience or anything.

The real catch is that you actually have to do the actual math and then actually stick to it. Everybody who knows Miss Lady knows Miss Lady is math adverse. I find a million ways to not do it, including..umm eating whole foods exclusively so that I don't have to worry so much about calorie math-- I never do it, except as a part of occasionally troubleshooting my trouble with weight loss. A perfect example of when I effed this up was when I gained fat while marathon training. Bourbon and queso and math adversion plus a failure to be reasonable (another option actually) meant that I gained 5 bad pounds-- not muscle-- during the holidays. While running up to 40 miles per week. Though I also know that distance training is not the ideal way for me to lose weight, I also know that is some BROKEN ASS treat thinking. For another example of BROKEN ASS treating thinking, see Weight Watchers-- "I was so good today and I still have 8 pts left because I ate from the 4pts boxes all day and now I can have cake so I can live another day!"

So treat thinking is a real danger right now. Because I so could. Accomplishing pretty much anything with a broken leg is a pretty good workout. There also might be some temptation to feel, somewhat justifiably, sorry for yourself. And then just have a treat. Here's an example that may or may not have driven me to the computer to write this: Cat litter. You can't change it on one foot. But you also can't let it just stink, because its Tuesday and you smelled it on Saturday and the cat has left a warning poo outside the litter. Some images: a pee and clay slush, Miss Lady balancing on one foot cursing herself for not be adamant that liners should be purchased, Miss Lady tossing the whole slushy pan into a bag after trying to unstick what was stuck, Miss Lady cursing everyone who was here and didn't change this litter-- dammit-- even though they were helpful in a thousand other ways, Miss Lady learning to mop on one foot, and then having to wash that one foot for reasons I dont want to talk about. Also, Miss Lady trying to explain to the friend who will buy her a new box that regular size is oddly labeled "jumbo" and then hating the whole cat litter industry. HATE.

I could really use a treat right now, but I don't want to get into that type of thinking. If I do though, fortunately the only thing in the house like that is Larabars, which ain't so bad. AND its lunch time now, so I can just go have the food I need to eat anyhow.

Wait...and there's cold brew coffee. Always a totally healthy and excusable treat. Problem solved.

Miss Lady's Resolve: Tested

Remember how I wrote that blog about not falling of my regimins for a year, no matter what came up? Well, I was thinking that my challenges would be things like a music festival where I really wanted to drink alot or perhaps a really yummy chocolate cake somewhere. I didn't think that anything like breaking my leg would come up.

Can I just say that it is worse than I ever thought it would be? The break hurt, yes, but the interupption to life, and the dependence this causes is crazy. Before I got my kneeling walker with basket, I attempted crutches, which I am really bad at. To demonstrate the dependence that this causes, I had my friend boil me some eggs, so I could keep my protein up and have breakfast ready. When I got to the kitchen in the morning though, I realized that I could not carry the eggs anywhere or stand up for long enough to peel-n-eat them. It would be so easy to just flop down on the sofa and order pizzas.

But I said it and I meant it. For a year. No matter what.

I should also mention that a part of how I am able to continue with this, is the willingness of my friends to bring me brown rice and chicken instead of comfort casseroles, that I know would be easier. I need healthy food for my healing more than ever now, and it is nice to have so many people invested in this goal with me. Extra special thanks to Nora for starting my food tree.

Eatings have included:
painkillers
brown rice with chicken and salad
various chicken salads
chicken sausage and lentils
rotisserie chicken
egg and sausage cups
Tacodeli
800 Larabars
hummus, carrots, and tomatoes
Delicious lemony chicken with zucchini and Morracan carrot salad
coffee
chicken vindaloo
plus other stuff I cant remember

I've never eaten so well, or felt so loved.

No Free Lunch

Did y'all know I like to write about things that irritate me? No? That's not possible, because I barely write about anything else. In fact, I'm pretty sure I exist so that I can tell the world what's irritating me and thus make that world a better place.

So as a part of my new job (btw life challenges/changes = nutrition challenges, but I bet you knew that) I have to go to a lot of trainings, curriculum sessions, etc. For instance, I got to go to new teacher training even though I'm not new to teaching at all!! The district wide day of new teacher training occured at a campus that some of us refer to as North San Antonio, in one of those bizarre parts of Austin that seem like suburban, where there are practically no bike riders or people wearing a jester hat for no reason. So because the campus is surrounded by houses and apartments and 900 teachers drove into the little parking lot that morning, the district provided us "lunch." The conversation I had about that "lunch" is what is inspiring this rant.

In exchange for not paying us what we are worth, and so that it seems like our jobs contain semblance of the perks sometimes provided to professionals, they often feed us in education. Donuts provided by student councils or dance teams, bagels and cream cheese paid for by the administrative team, occasionally breakfast tacos which teachers devour like raptors. Side story-- this one time, they brought us these little chicken mini biscuits from Chick-Fil-A and nobody could really tell how many you were eating so some teachers who are not me ate a bunch cause...yeah. What? Where was I? Anyhow, I used to eat all the crap, because it is very nice of whomever in a way, and we are supposed to be super-grateful, and we are usually broke around this time. At some point though, I started charting how much my weight changed at the beginnings and ends of school years-- the heavy free food times. Average weight gain was 5 lbs. So that's 10 lbs a school year if you don't do anything about it. Have you seen a teacher's butt lately?

So I finally decided that free wasn't really free of costs to me, and I stopped eating that shit. Its easy enough till I get trapped where I'm expected to eat what they provide. On district wide day at the North San Antonio school, I got thrown off by the email that said "lunch provided" and forgot to prepare. I thought they meant lunch, but they meant "lunch." Grr...It was a box lunch from Scholtzky's that included a sandwich with their gigantor bread, chips, a pickle, and a cookie. Or as I like to call it "gluten, carbs, sugarcrack, and chemicals." I ended up eating the inside of the sandwich and the pickle and then making a decision to go to Starfucks and get a protein plate, even if it made me late for my next session. I spoke to one of the Teacher Induction Program people hanging out near the sandwiches and she told me that they "can't possibly think about each person's special nutrition." Pfft. First, what nutrition? There are very few people, especially in the big butt world of teaching, that are ideally nourished by a meal of bread, cookies, and chips with a tiny amount of protein. I'm gonna say, that based on the average American butt size, never mind teacher butt size, that many people see detrimental effects from that, ranging from getting the yawns to the 'betes. I'm not saying that everybody has to be doing something about it during that exact meal time, but I don't think it should be outta the question to replace one of those things with an apple for crying out loud.  I mean we can think about who wants turkey or roast beef, but not who wants a salad?

Rant over. I should have prepared better. I've had a few other situations like that in the past week where I was prepared when I showed up to a bagel and juice breakfast or donuts, and it was fine. Nonetheless, here are a few guidelines I'd like to offer the world:

Do tell people what kinda lunch or breakfast is provided. So not "breakfast provided" but "shitty stale bagels" or "semi-drinkable coffee provided." Even "box lunch" is somewhat informative.

If you are a big organization that prides itself on technology integration, why not send out a survey? Then you can order close to the right amount-- rather than running out of roast beef and having dozens of veggie sandwiches left. And then you could order up some chicken salads because I could have told you on the survey that I would indeed eat that.

Get with the times, dammit. Never mind the many fallacies of dieting fads, the past decade or so has included Atkins and South Beach and paleo eatins-- plenty of things that advocate protein. Are people really missing this? Some people prefer protein and veggies. Some people prefer veggies and no gluten. Especially in a place like Austin. Gah.

Donuts are not breakfast. Please indicate that morning dessert will be provided instead of calling this breakfast.

Thank you. Carry on.

Eatings:

August 13th
Breakfast: Eggs w/ ?
Snack: Larabar
Lunch: Bowl full of turkey, hummus, guacamole, carrots, tomatoes
Dinner: Salmon burger with gorgonzola and cranberries...actually based on how sinful it tasted and how it made me feel...I describe it as more of a salmon cake...definitely more bread crumbs. On top of greens with tomatoes.
Snack: I suspect I had a banana with peanut butter. I feel like a nectarine happened on this day as well.

August 14th
Breakfast: Eggs, bacon, steel cut oats with blueberries
AND COFFEE with a drop of cream
Lunch: About 1 oz of turkey from the inside of a sandwich with a lame tomato and some shredded lettuce. Pickle. Miss Lady MAD! Then coffee happens again.
Snack: Starbucks protein plate sans muffin or sugary pb (ooh future rant!) so really just the cheese and egg and fruit
Dinner: Cranberry gongonzola salmon business on greens again.

August 15th:
Breakfast: Tacodeli Otto with the tortilla. Yes, I'm starting that again. It gets me outta bed? AND COFFEE.
Snack: None really, but this lady in my training gives me her coffee because they forgot to give her sugar.
Lunch: Central Market Cafe Hatch Chile burger with avocado and bacon, no bun. Side salad with many colors.
Dinner: Chicken with Dona Sauce (from Tacodeli) and hatch pico, baked. Served on green with tomatoes and guacamole.
Snack: Two whole beers.

August 16th
Breakfast: Eggs, bacon, steel cut oats with blueberries. Coffee.
Lunch: Turkey and cranberry salad from HEB (came unprepared and was loaned lunch. Delicious but full of chemical ingredients. Why HEB?) Apple. Coffee.
Snack: Peanut butter and banana. Turkey and hummus with bananas and carrots. Maybe guacamole.
Dinner: Taco in a bowl from Cherrywood: Eggs, avocado, bacon.

August 17th
Breakfast: Tacodeli Otto. With the tortilla? Fraid so.
Lunch/Snack: Chicken with guac
Dinner: Salad from Black Star Coop-- Beets, Chicken, Greens, Candied (yeah) pecans, goat cheese
Snack: Beers, 2 giant Waterloos, 1 Lonestar. Lots of water!

August 18th
Breakfast: Eggs, bacon, steel cut oatmeal with blueberries
Lupper: Chipotle bowl with lettuce, chicken, pico, brown rice, guac, black beans
Snack: Brown rice salmon sushi from WF, some cocktail from Highball. Sugar was not listed as an ingredient on the menu...but I saw it go in the drink. Grr.

August 19th
Breakfast: Eggs, bacon, and steel cut oats with blueberries. Yes it is good. Why do you ask?
Lunch: Double Carnitas Chipotle bowl. The usual otherwise.
Dinner: Banana with PB.

Eatings

August 6th
?

August 7th
Breakfast: Eggs + oatmeal and blackberries
Snack: deviled eggs
Lunch: WF salad bar with chopped beef
Dinner?

August 8th
Protein powder, peanut butter, banana.
Meatloaf + salad
burger with tomatoes and real sugar ketchup

August 9th
2 eggs + bacon, coffee
Chipotle: barbacoa, brown rice, lettuce, pico, avocado. Coffee

August 10th
Breakfast: Eggs + bacon
Caveman Cuisine: "Chinese" "Fried" "Rice"-- meh on their chicken, yay on the cauliflower rice
Salami, sweet potato hummus, tomatoes, greens
Paramount movie: wine, Makers on the rocks

August 11th
Eggs, oatmeal plus blackberries
Lunch picnic on San Marcos river: Hatch chile chicken salad, plantain chips, strawberries, tomatoes, WF lemon hummus
Snack: coffee, beef jerky, plantain chips
Snack: Sample from Peruvian trailer-- arroz con pollo, aji de gallina
Dinner: Arroz con pollo sans arroz. Yes I know I mixed up my languages. 1 Pearl Snap beer.




August 12th
Tacodeli: Refried black beans, avocado, bacon, and chicken in a cup--no tortilla
Snack: Coffee, Kind bar
Lunch: turkey, tomatoes, hummus
Book club: beef, chicken, >10 tortilla chips, lettuce, tomatoes, mango and jicama salad, 1 glass red wine


August 13th
 2 eggs, oatmeal with blueberries, coffee
Cherrywood Coffeehouse: 2 egg taco, avocado, bacon, corn tortilla. Coffee.
Peanut butter w banana
Hopdoddy: Salad with burger patty, spinach, argula, apples, beets, goat cheese, pecans.
San Jose Hotel: 1 Pearl Snap Beer


Hmmm...these days must be off. Minus 1 on all dates?

Not Falling Off the Regimens-- for a year.

Uh...so my new plan is this: Instead of cleansing up my eating for 10 days or eating well until a special occasion comes along, I'm just going to eat well for 365 days, pretty much without exception. I know I don't have to explain myself, but I don't mind. See: this blog.

• 80/20 rule works for most people, but has been remarkably ineffective for me.
• I still plan to investigate medically for further reasons/solutions concerning the above.
• Yeah, I'm probably not going to drink...or will only drink a bit of wine here and there. Eating less carbs makes every drink super potent anyhow, so its for the best. This might suck too much, such I'll let you know.
• So it's the usual: little/no gluten, little/no sugar, lots o protein, veggies galore, not so much processed, little/no cow dairy. No undereating.
• A few concessions to make life manageable: Not worrying about small amounts of sugar in condiments, wine (yes I wrote this again), coffee for now, 1 smmalll dairy item per day...like a drop of cream or sprinkles of cheese in a salad...also goat cheese! Also, if some BBQ happens,and that meat is sugary, that's okay. (I'll revisit this, if somehow I have BBQ everyday).
• I'm starting a new job, that's somewhat in a food desert relative to the amount of time I have for lunch. I have a fridge and a willingness to burn through plastic containers though.
• Don't worry if you are really attached to having a lot of Miss Lady to love. I'll always have muscle. And this may not work!

This actually already started. I always start some sorta healthy refresher after my birthday, for healthy reasons and fear of getting older reasons. Funny, its always supposed to start on the 3rd but doesn't happen until the 4th because I need a bday recovery day. So let's say that I'm doing this for 364 days at least, so that I can have something decadent, like wheat bread, on my 38th birthday. Here's what I've eaten so far:

August 4th
Breakfast: 3 eggs with onions, tomatoes, and red bell peppers. Someone else cooked before I could tell them not to use milk or cheese...so there's milk and cheese too. Failure already! But I'm not worried.

Snack: Larabar-- Peanut Butter and Jelly

Lunch: Carrots with guacamole. Greens with sausage, tomatoes, and berries.

Snack: Peanut butter with banana

Dinner: Catfish panfried with olive oil. Mango pico de gallo, greens, tomatoes.


August 5th
Breakfast: 3 eggs with mango pico de gallo..

Snack: Larabar-- chocolate something?

Lunch: Chipotle salad with brown rice, black beans, guacamole, pico, and barbacoa.

Snack: Fake ice cream: Frozen bananas, coconut milk, blackberries. Delicious...but a tad sugary.

Dinner: Catfish panfried with olive oil-- except actually microwaved today. Mango pico, tomatoes, guac.

Falling Off the Regimens

Here's my obligatory apology for not posting in a while: oops.

I recently had a visitor in town. A fellow healthy eating hopeful from the land of the north. (Crap, I've been watching too much Game of Fucking Thrones.) Anyhow, since I had been eating pretty healthy after a spell of not eating healthy after a spell of eating healthy, I was determined to continue to eat mostly healthy for my sake and the sake of my visitor. So when I picked her up I told her that I would need her help in this. She looked at me, puzzled as to what could possibly distract such a determined person from her goal. "Austin," I told her, "is basically a series of falling off of your regimens."

As in, whatever your regimens be, Austin make it easy to eff up. One minute its "I'm gonna cut back on drinking" followed by "oh, but there's a bloody mary bar at this brunch place that we are going to tomorrow because my friend who used to live here is going to be in town. Oh and she wants us to go out and see this band tonight and they might be bad, so I'll probably wanna drink, but after this weekend I can stop, unless we get tickets to Blah Blah Blah fest cause they will have free Golden Zipper beer which is this microbrew that my friend who used to be in a band makes. Do you wanna go right now and also later to this awesome food trailer that's behind this bar that used to be cool?"

Speaking of food trailers, eating plans are even more subject to revision in my experience. One minute I'm like "blah blah paleo diet, ethical meat, oh and dairy causes inflammation, and I don't eat carbs, and I'm working on being a locavore because industrialized food business is what's wrong with America. The Western diet is bullshit and so is high fructose corn syrup and other redundant things." But then. Twenty hairdos and five nights later, and I've forgotten to go to the grocery store, and I need to go to this other benefit show so there's no time to cook anyway, which is okay because they opened a new trailer yard near my house and the menu at this one trailer was designed by the last winner of Iron Asshole. And Willie Nelson will be there so it's okay if I eat there just this once. "Mmm pig anus with enriched bleached flour and rotten high fructose corn syrup tomatoes sauce!"

If you are curious how it turned out, regimens got falled off of.* We started off the week with Whole Foods and by cooking whole foods, with a few planned exceptions for Tacodeli and Indian food, but before we knew it, there was queso, and Whataburger, and pants not fitting. It was a lot like what I described above, but with no Willie Nelson.

I'm not saying it's impossible or even that it's Austin's fault, but I'm pretty sure that if I lived in a town where my own cooking was the most exciting thing, or where I'd already done all the good stuff a million times, it would be easier. I have a new(ish) plan though, that involves NOT falling off my regimen. I'll write about it in my next post, provided I don't fall off that again. Or again again. Crap.

More Game of Thrones!

*How do you like that Joan Jolt? Double prep ending, passive construction, and...also something wrong with my verb, all in one clause. It actually requires more talent than good grammar.