It's way too early for shopping

Le Boyfriend's sister got engaged around Thanksgiving and will be wed in June. I am ecstatic for them. Not only because of their upcoming nuptials and the inevitable fun times with their riotous family but for a slightly more selfish reason - it (somewhat) takes pressure off of Le Boyfriend and myself for a while.

That last statement isn't really as true as I hoped it was, ha, but whatever. With the focus on his sister and her beloved, my sweet boy and I don't get peppered with questions about when we'll get hitched quite as often. (Again, I'm trying to convince myself that statement is true.)

Honestly, since I've decided to make 2014 my year, I feel like I've made a lot of huge changes to my life.

1. I have really dedicated myself to eating better, more wholesome meals (with exceptions here and there).
2. I've committed to working out at least three to four times every week. 
3. I've been spending more time focusing on job hunting including follow-up emails, updating my resume, reading about what kind of jobs I could be applying for and I've even attached myself to two creative staffing agencies to do some of the legwork for me. 

All three of those items that I've been trying to focus on are tangible goals that I'm doing my best to keep up with and I think they're paying off.

I've lost about seven pounds since the beginning of January and I can actually tell the difference. T-shirts that were pretty tight around my midsection that were quickly on their way to a fate in the back of the drawer, are now fitting much looser and more comfortably.

I've applied to a few jobs that I definitely feel qualified for and FINALLY one of them contacted me back for a phone interview and a possible in-person interview later this week. (Wish me luck!)

Now let me try and reign in my thoughts over here, the whole point of this post was to say that since Le Boyfriend's sister is getting married in June, I now have a goal date to reach that's realistic and I can hold myself accountable to; Friday, June 27, 2014.

As of this point, that's only about four months away. In four months, I could potentially lose at least 20 pounds. In four months I could potentially GAIN 20 pounds. I'm pulling for the former rather than the latter.

The reason I started writing this particular blog post was because I decided to start looking at dresses for the wedding that's four months away and I was tempted to buy one already.

The dress is from Dorothy Perkins. It's a simple, pencil dress with a notched neckline, a silhouette that I'm a huge fan of. I think it's the fact that I enjoy showing off the curves of my waist and bum and I've been a big fan of my calves lately... but I digress. It's the color that really stood out to me, it's a lovely coral color, perfect for a June wedding, and I won't clash with the bridesmaids. And the added bonus is that I'll most likely already be somewhat tan from the summer sun so I feel like I'm just gonna be glowing in it. (#justsayin'.)

After a quick text to Le Boyfriend, who reaffirmed that it is in fact too soon to be buying dresses for a wedding four months away, I thought to myself;

"Self, why don't you wait and see how much weight you lose before buying anything. You'll probably be a few sizes smaller by then, Self, which will TOTALLLLLYYY save money on alterations."*

So in the end, I've decided not to buy this lovely dress and have somewhat made a loose wager with myself that if I lose at least 15 pounds I'll buy something new and if I don't, then I'll wear something old.

Chances are that I'll probably buy something new regardless, just because I can't resist.

*Notice how that statement is all in the affirmative. Yeah buddy, Ana's getting stuff done this year, lol. 

Self-pity Party

As I'm sitting here, watching POTUS deliver the State of the Union, I can't help but not pay attention and have a self-pity party on my couch.

I'm severely unemployed. I've applied to numerous jobs that I feel I'm qualified for and not one has called/emailed/sent a carrier pigeon. It's pretty insulting and incredibly disheartening.

The last time I was unemployed for this amount of time, which is now at this point six months, give or take a three-week stint as a temp in October, I at least had a full-time school schedule to keep me busy.

Now, I have the pleasure of filling my days staring at the same job listings over and over again.

I don't know where I went wrong in life. I guess it was that journalism degree. Maybe I should've been a doctor/lawyer/businessperson.

Honestly, I don't know where to start to change my situation and it's such a bummer because I'd really like to start living an adult life.

2014 will be MY year

I say this every year, but this time I mean it. (I also say that every year).

I started out 2014 the heaviest I've ever been in my life. 207 lbs. Yeah, I said my weight on the internet. Whatevs.

I've never really had low self esteem that I can recall, and I've never been very humble either. If I think I'm awesome at something, I'll let you know.

But back to the point. I'm over weight and I have been most of my life, I'm very much aware of that. However for the first time in a while, I'm feeling uncomfortable about it.

My back aches, I don't dig the way I look in my clothes sometimes, I'm having some serious muffin top issues lately, it's just not cool anymore.

So this year, I'm actually going to follow through on my plans to do something about it.  (Again, something I say every year.)

I don't know why, but 2014 feels different. Maybe I've finally matured. Maybe not. Maybe a year of following fitness boards on Pinterest and fitspo Instagramers has finally gotten to me.

Either way, my resolution for 2014 is to just get stuff done. Whatever it is. Weight loss. Get it done. Finding a job. Get it done. Keep my room clean. Get it done.

Spiral slicing: 101

Monday morning, I bought a spiral slicer at Bed, Bath and Beyond and after on what felt like a cruel prank by my GPS, I picked it up at the store.

Luckily on my way to the store I passed a Wegmans, so I bought an eggplant and three zucchinis along with some lunch at their delicious hot food bar, haha.

My plan was to make some delish "zoodles" when I got home, but that didn't happen for a few days, because well, life happens in between, and at least this time when I tried something in the kitchen I remembered to take pictures, lol.

So a couple days ago I decided to finally make the zoodles. I had seen many Pinterest pins for zoodles and recipes that use them instead of regular pasta and it always intrigued me and just made sense for low-carb living instead of depriving myself of pasta dishes altogether.

Basically, the slicer works similarly to a mandolin whereas the blade stays still and the vegetable moves across it to create uniform, thin slices. The spiral slicer has a crank arm with a spiked disc to grab onto the veggie in question and another "grip" on the blade side.

After washing your veggies cut a slice off of both ends to create a flat surface for the grippers to grip and then press one of the flat ends onto the side with the spiked disc and slide toward the blade.

Once the zucchini is up against the blade you can start cranking and in no time you'll have a plate full of long green ribbons!

The noodles are going to be very long spirals and I think next time I'm going to cut the zucchinis in half before I spiral them so they're shorter and more manageable noodles.

A quick side note, I tried to spiral slice the eggplant but it didn't work so well. I think it was just a bit too dense or big and just ended up bruising one side of the egg plant. I want to keep experimenting with the eggplant idea because who doesn't like eggplant parm?

Anyway, so after I had a plateful of noodles, I boiled them for a few minutes to make them tender, which I only slightly regret doing afterward because I ended up sautéing them anyway, so the boiling was unnecessary.

I cubed up the eggplant and sauteed it with some olive oil and garlic and some cherry tomatoes. In another pot I browned up some ground turkey and when everything was cooked I mixed it all together and added the remainder of a jar of pasta sauce to it.

Overall, it was a pretty tasty dish, and I'd totally eat it and make it again and obviously I have plans on using my slicer so much more.

Do you have a new gadget that you're in love with?



Spiral Slicing: 101 by Ana M. Ferrer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://analovesfood1.blogspot.com/2013/09/spiral-slicing-101.html.

Back to basics

WARNING: THIS POST MAY SOUND WHINEY. CUE YOUR VIOLINS.

O.K. so, going paleo didn't exactly pan out for me. Or rather, I didn't exactly pan out going paleo, if that makes sense. After a month I lost some weight as I shared in a previous post, but I couldn't stick to it.

I worked out with a trainer twice a week for three months and felt stronger, but didn't lose any weight because my diet was out of control. And when I say "out of control" I don't mean I was washing down 18 super-sized value meals with a carton of ice cream. Mainly, I go out to eat a lot with The Boyfriend which usually includes appetizers, wine (on my side of the table at least) and restaurant-sized portions.

I told myself that I'd get back on track during the summer - get really focused and concentrate on getting fit while looking for a job. But of course, that didn't happen.

I've been freelancing for my old newspaper writing about local restaurants where I interview owners and/or managers and generally I test out the food, so naturally, I choose places with delicious food which isn't always diet-friendly.

Nonetheless, I didn't stick to paleo because in the end I found it to be a bit too restrictive with the exclusion of grains and some dairy, I can't give up cheese, I just can't do it. haha.

I have no one to blame but myself for my short-comings while trying to lose weight and I make a lot of excuses:

Excuse: "My mom buys garbagey foods and I don't have any money to buy my own stuff all the time."

• Translation: I'm lazy and have no will power. 

 Excuse: "I worked out today, I can treat myself to some (a lot) of fro-yo."

• Translation: My fro-yo ends up as a huge serving, mostly with fruit but there's usually some kind of chocolatey bits on there. 

Anyway, I like the idea of the paleo diet, whole natural foods and basing your diet on unprocessed items, but like I said, the lack of grains is just a bit too restrictive for me and it made me feel like a scumbag with every .

I follow so many people on Pinterest who live healthy lifestyles that I envy and the term "eating clean" kept popping up so I decided to look in to it for myself and I'm pretty much sold.

The two pyramids have the same basic elements: fruit, vegetables and lean proteins. The twist is the clean eating pyramid shifts focus from proteins to plant matter and includes grains, legumes and dairy.

I think clean eating is going to be a better situation for me, it's essentially eating an overall healthy diet which just makes sense.

So let's see what happens. Maybe I'll be bold enough to post some before measurements and pictures. ..or maybe not. I'll wait until I see some results maybe.

Until next time!

Broccoli that I'll actually eat, and maybe you will too!

So I was watching the Rachael Ray show the other morning and Daphne Oz was a guest, along with Bob Harper from The Biggest Loser, and Shaun T from the Insanity workouts.

It was some fitness day episode, so healthy recipes were featured on the show including Daphne Oz's "pizza" broccoli, which I actually tried.

Her recipe is basically you steam some broccoli florets, then drizzle some olive oil, oregano, crushed red pepper and peccorino romano cheese over top before sticking them in the broiler to get super toasty and melty.

I used frozen florets and added more spices to mine before baking it with the stuffed fish I had for dinner.

Generally, I use the foil pouch method of cooking my frozen veggies when I'm baking them, since for the most part they just steam and suck up any flavoring I shove in the foil pouch.

So in this pizza broccoli pouch, I had about a handful of frozen broccoli florets and six or eight fresh cherry tomatoes.

I seasoned them with crushed red pepper and oregano like in Daphne's recipe but I added onion powder, garlic powder, salt and black pepper and I threw in like a tablespoon of peccorino romano and a pat of butter instead of the olive oil.

I baked it along with my fish according to the fish's directions which were 400 for 15-20 minutes and they came out fantastic.

The pizza broccoli wasn't exactly the best pairing to my crab-stuffed fish, but I really wanted to test out how delicious this broccoli was.

...and it was delicious.

It legitimately tasted like I was eating a slice of broccoli covered pizza, which I'm not opposed to. The addition of the fresh tomatoes was the clincher for me I think. They pretty much oozed out their tomatoey goodness and mixed with the butter and cheese and got everything pretty saucy, which again, I'm not opposed to.

All and all, I'll make it again, I may try it Daphne's way and put them in the broiler and maybe they'll be more of a kale chip texture.

I'll more than likely use the same combo of spices to make some pizza kale chips one of these days.

The never-ending zucchini

I've been cooking up a storm this week! ...not really a storm, maybe there was a slight gust of wind and a few rain drops.

But anyway, a week or two ago my dad brought home a zucchini the size of The Boyfriend's forearm and put me in charge of doing something with it.

And so I got to Pinterest-ing.

I searched for some zucchini bread recipes and came across two that I liked- a double chocolate loaf and regular cinnamony muffins.

Both recipes needed like two cups of shredded zucchini each but alas there was still like half of the zuke left when I was done baking.

The double chocolate loaf was so delicious and moist and tasted so chocolatey I almost felt bad eating it everyday. And I mean almost because there was zucchini in it and I used agave instead of sugar so it was "healthy." (Haha)

This past Saturday I decided to bake some more muffins so I found another recipe from Sew Creative and made some tweaks, like switching out half the flour for almond meal and I used agave instead of sugar, etc. 

Here's the final recipe which produced some of the most tasty muffins that were also really filling and they're also egg-free, but full of carbs and probably not enough fiber, so maybe I'll work on it to make it healthier.

Zucchini Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Muffins 

• 1.5 cups All Purpose Flour
• 1.5 cups Almond Flour 
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup Agave Syrup
• 1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
• 1/2 cup Applesauce
• 2 cups Shredded Zucchini
• 1/4 cup pecans (or nut of your choice)
• 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract

This recipe is enough for a 12-cup muffin pan. 

1. Preheat your oven to 350. 
2. Get some bowls
3. Mix all that stuff up in there
4. Scoop it into the muffin pan cups
5. Wait patiently

Mine were done at like 40-45 minutes, the recipe I tweaked said 50 minutes in the oven and she used two loaf pans so use your better judgement and do the toothpick test. 

Nutrition per serving (according to My Fitness Pal):

Calories: 274 Carbs: 34g Fat: 46g Protein: 6g Sodium: 89g Sugar: 20g