Paleo Sweet Potato and Watercress Soup

Mine did not look like this.  It looked like purple porridge.  This one's much prettier. 

Just a quick post so I can share the recipe for the yummy soup I made last night.  Warning:  It comes out looking like purple porridge, but is soooo good.  I got the original recipe here.  Excellent recipe.  The directions are easy to follow.  To make it Paleo, all I did was leave out the white potato.  I bought two Okinawan sweet potatoes because that sounded super yummy to me, hence the color of the soup.  The Watercress was from my friend's aquaponic farm system, so I had a whole bunch of it.  The watercress had a strong, peppery flavor before adding it to the soup, so I didn't add very much.  I could have added much more, it ended up losing a lot of flavor in the few minutes it was in there.  Also, I added a store bought broth to it, per the suggestion of one of the commenters.  Because my vegetarian friend was joining us for this meal I used 4 cups of Organic Vegetable broth, it did have some canola oil, but, whatever.  I added two cups of water to make the six cups of liquid.  I also sprinkled on a dash of Cayenne Powder, which I think added a nice touch.  I was thinking that if I make myself another round today or tomorrow, I will probably use a chicken broth and add some of the meat I have.  The meat turned out a little tough when I made it the other day, so adding it to a slow cooking soup might be a better use.  I also was thinking that if I had remembered to bring my coconut milk to the party, I would have added a spoonful of the thicker, creamier stuff from the top of the can to the top of a bowl of soup before serving it.

A Wedding, A Baby and a Bonfire Part IV, The End!

Rope Climbing at Crossfit

Day 8, Crossfit and a Baby!  Woke up early next to my BFF Jen Stack and went to get some eggs at the local diner.  Then we dressed up, grabbed Anna and headed off to Crossfit for another round.  This time we did squats, pullups, and pushups AMRAP until the time ran out.  It felt pretty good.

Eating Deli Sandwich on the Road 

Akiva Teaching me about Coffee

Elisheva

Anna and I headed back to Saugerties and packed our stuff as fast as we could so we could be out of the house before Mom came home.  It's just true.  We threw shit in our bags and ran to the car.  We stopped off at Price Chopper to get some deli meat and bread, made sandwiches on the trunk of the car and headed off to Boston.  It wasn't a long drive, but I started to fall asleep while I was driving and we switched off.  Anna took the controls and we swooped in on our nephews and our new niece!  It was so great to see Akiva and Asher, I usually only get to skype with them and it's just not the same.  We gave them their gifts and set off to the playroom to play.  Angela alternately fed and held Elisheva, since that's all she was capable of at that point.  Little 3 day old babies don't do much but eat, sleep and poop.  The boys were adorably excited about the baby and kept reaching out to stroke her cheek or pat her side.  Akiva and I played catch for a while and then we sat down to dinner.  Just simple spaghetti and meatballs family style.  Then the boys and I did some burpees.  The video should be posted in my list of links on the side.  It's super cute.  We played some more games and went to bed.

Awesome Game

Go Fish

Day 9, play, play, play.  Akiva woke Anna and I up super, duper early and since Anna wanted to sleep in Akiva offered to teach me how to make coffee.  Of course I accepted.  This kid is smart.  He walked me through the whole process.  The only thing he didn't know was how many cups of water to put into the coffee maker.  He's awesome.  We got the boys ready for school after some quick games and sent them off.  Anna and I read, slept and then hung out with Ang and Ben for a while until we could pick the boys up from school to play more games.  Since you probably don't care about the nitty gritty of the games, I'll just say that we played the most awesome games of Hungry, Hungry Hippo and War or something.  The boys are hilarious and adorable.   We took turns holding the baby and talking with Ang and playing games and so on and so forth.  Ate, went to bed. 

Cereal and Checkers

Mad Puzzles

Day 10, made a Moby Wrap.  Akiva woke us up super early again and we played a quick game of Checkers while he ate his breakfast and set off for school.  Asher doesn't go to school on Fridays.  Anna, Asher and I put together mad puzzles, and Anna and I took turns cleaning the playroom.  When Ang got home we headed to the closest fabric store, who lied to us about having regular old cotton fabric.  They were a upholstery store.  So we got some heavy cotton fabric, headed home and I whipped up a Moby Wrap.  We tied it onto Anna to practice and then stuck the baby in with Angela.  I hope she gets some use out of it, but I'll probably make another one with lighter fabric for her.  Anna and I planned on leaving for Saugerties around noon, but instead waited around to pick up Akiva from school.  He was really excited that we were still around.  We played a few more games.  Asher helped Anna and I pack and we played the best game of hide and seek ever.  Asher told us to hide and started counting.  Then he hid too.  Anna and I just busted out laughing because he wouldn't come find us, he just wanted all of us to hide.  We would have been there forever if we hadn't been able to talk him into finding us.  Again, love that kid.

Beginning Bonfire

So we said our goodbyes, and packed into the car for the drive.  On the way Andrew called and said he was heading to Saugerties too, so we made plans to meet at Sue's where the Kovaks always get together on Friday nights.  When Anna and I got home, Mom gave me the finger (now nicknamed pulling a Pauline) and Anna and I took off to Sue's.  We hung out with Andrew and friends and finally headed home around midnight.

Bonfire!!

Day 11, Bonfire.  We woke up early and started rolling logs.  Had to finish up the firepit to prepare for the night's festivities.  It's hard to describe, but I put some other videos up of us log rolling.  It was a hell of a lot of work.  Andrew fixed the bonfire so it would actually light on fire, we stacked wood to throw on as the night went on, we collected hot dog roasting sticks, we hit Price Chopper and bought all kinds of snacks.  Andrew put together a potato casserole to be cooked later in the night as well as some chicken to throw on the fire.  We drank Guiness and got ready.  At around 5:30 the fire was lit.  This was the biggest fire I've ever seen at the Sullivan's.  It was ginormous.  The video hardly does it justice, but the link will be up all the same.  From then on friends continued to roll up, the keg was tapped, hot dogs and marshmallows were roasted.  Mary McGinn, Jen Stack, Mary Jankowski, and Becca Hoppsen showed up and that's all that really matters.  Also present were several of Anna's friends and Andrew's girlfriend Emily, who is very nice.  We partied as long as we could keep our eyes open and headed off to bed smelling like a firepit.  I stripped off the outer most layer of my clothes and curled up in my bonfire gear.  I actually looked at all of my pictures and watched the bonfire lighting video before I went to sleep.

Andrew in the Bear Cave

Andrew at Opus 40

Day 12, Opus 40.  We woke up to prepare bagels and scrambled eggs.  Mom and I headed off to Mass at some church in Saugerties.  When we got home we cleaned up the bonfire area, watched some Hawaii 5-0 and prepared for a trek to Opus 40, this amazing architectural landscape that some guy built by hand over the course of 37 years.  It is a quick walk through the woods from our parents house.  We used to go there all the time when we were kids.  On a hot day the cool air that comes from the quarry rocks feels amazing.  On a day like this Sunday, it was very peaceful, and a little sad.  On the way there Andrew showed Emily the "Bear Cave" that he and his best buddy Ken made when they were in 6th grade.

Andrew at Opus 40

When we got home it was really sad because Mom had made all of these plans for me while I was home and we didn't get to any of them.  True, we could have gotten one or two things done if she hadn't been actively ignoring me most of my vacation, but you can never get all of the things you plan in on these crazy East Coast ventures.  We said our goodbyes, had some coffee and jumped into Vandalf, first to return the keg, then to sleep at Andrew's place since it was closer to the Newark airport than Saugerties.  We hit up the Zombie Hut for the Giants game and then we hunkered down for the night at Andrew's apartment.  We ordered ourselves a car to drive us to the airport at the buttcrack of dawn and passed out for a few hours.

Eating Healthy is the First to Go

So I have been having a really hard time the past few days.  It doesn't matter that I'm going back East to have a fabulously fun time, it's always stressful to get ready for a long vacation.  Especially since Nathan isn't going with me.  I'm not packed yet.  I just bought dresses for the wedding.  I'm finishing my paperwork here at work and there is way more than I'd like to admit to get done here still.  When I get stressed I get hypersensitive.  So when my friends came to help me find dresses at Ross yesterday instead of being able to enjoy the time, although it did end up being quite fruitful, I was snippy and grumpy.  When I get stressed I want everyone to just go away so I can sit by myself and pull myself back together.  But I can't do that right now.  I left myself too much to do, and Nathan's mother is visiting from New York.  I may head off to the library or something before I head home so I can just have a moment or two of alone time.  I don't need much.  But I haven't been by myself in a while.  I need that.  Of course tomorrow evening I'm going to get plenty of alone time.  I'm going to be sitting by myself in the airport for two hours and then flying by myself for 11 more.  After that I'm not sure if I'm going to have any time to relax, I think pretty much from when I land I'm going to be all over the place, trying to fit a bazillion things into two weeks of vacation time.
I hate to admit it, but my eating has been shit.  I have been stuffing bread down my throat and drinking wine at night.  On Saturday we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center, which was pretty great.  The shows were good at each island "station" and then we did a buffet dinner and "Ha, Breath of Life" the show.  So in the morning I ate well, my eggs as usual, but then we got to PCC and the only semi-foodlike thing to eat was chili nachos or a chili hot dog.  So I just ate the chili hot dog and enjoyed it.  I also had some shave ice, which is a tooooon of sugar.  Then, of course, the buffet was painfully bad for me.  I did my best in the beginning to line my plate with the prime rib, the crab legs, the eggplant, the fish and chicken.  There were also lots of sauted vegetables.  The thing is that most of the meat was breaded and fried and the sauces were all full of sugar.  And that just sends me into a tailspin.  This ended with 2 slices of oreo cheesecake among other tasty desserts.  Keep in mind, the food was DELICIOUS.  Then yesterday, breakfast and lunch were good, but dinner was sloppy joes with this delicious bread from this fabulous bread store down the street.  How am I going to argue when someone else is cooking for me?  My motivation and self-control have been non-existent.  At least I went hiking yesterday.
Anyway, those are my complaints.  All in all, not so bad.  I've got a pretty great life.  It just sometimes feels overwhelming, even though eating a great deal of food is not really a problem in many people's books.  I am lucky and grateful that I have my mother-in-law out here buying us food and cooking for us.

The good news is I got two fabulous dresses, I've got a list here next to me of all the things I need to pack so when I go home it shouldn't take too long and my Ipod is full of good music and two audio books.  I don't know what movies are going to be happening on the plane, but hopefully I can sleep through them and be ready to rock and roll when I get to New Jersey Wednesday morning.  I will be in charge of making food for myself in the next few weeks and I am going to be very selective about what I buy.  Lots of bacon, hopefully.

Two Days of Horrible Choices...

From Gokill.com

... And I liked it.  It tasted really good.  Halloween wasn't necessarily the problem.  It was the cookies that were on sale because they were orange Halloween cookies.  They hit my weak spot.  I ate almost a whole container of them.  That's a lot of calories.  Not that I'm counting calories these days, but dayum.  Then I spiraled and ate shit tons of the candy we bought just in case we had a trick or treater.  We didn't.  But we still have candy.  It's a good thing.  I wanted to eat it all.  I get this obsessive need to continue to eat.  I think it's the crack, er, I mean sugar in them.  There were chocolate chips and peanut butter... oh my god, I'm kind of drooling now.  Anyway, I spiraled int over eating and like a true addict I haven't written on my blog because I wanted to be alone with my guilt.  If I wrote about it, I'd have to stop and I didn't want to.  I wanted to stuff my gullet with sugar.  I had an amazing sugar hangover the next morning, which led to my addict thinking- maybe some bread and sugar, or maybe some wine will make me feel better.  Hmmm, I've never tried that before.  Lo and behold, no, more sugar and bread and wine did not make me feel better.  It truly makes me wonder what's in those god damn things.  I am a rational human being.  I make good decisions about my health.  I work out, I eat my vegetables, just like my mommy told me to.  So why is it that I turn into a crack fiend with just a sniff of peanut butter cookies?  Oh well, I'm human.  I'm fessing up to my weaknesses.  It's embarrassing, but true, my kryptonite is a dozen peanut butter cookies.
On another happier note, my Tae Kwon Do is moving smoothly and I will be testing for my orange belt tomorrow, woohoo!  They are letting me test early since I'll be on vacation on the regular testing date.  These guys really rock.  I did a pretest preparation yesterday, got some pointers and should pass with flying colors tomorrow.  I have a few things I have to memorize and I need to remember to do an elbow strike with all of my moves.  I've gotten lazy elbow.  I wish it didn't cost 105 bucks.  But that's martial arts.  It's the cost of the test, the belt and the videos for the next level.  The videos are a great investment.  Even if I don't continue with TKD, I'll always have the videos so I can review the moves.  And if I rejoin I can watch them to remember all my moves so I won't be totally embarrassed.  It was a great workout last night, my arms are still sore.  That's the kind of workout that I love.  I wish every TKD session was like that.  I would stay for sure.
I am going to go make dinner now, I think I can salvage the damage I did over the last couple of days.  I have lots of healthy food since we just got paid recently.  We have steak, broccoli, cauliflower, more beef, and lots of other stuff in the freezer.  I'll see if I can avoid the cookies.  Whatever is left is going to my school tomorrow, the office ladies can eat them.

Stress Eating

For some reason what I ate today for lunch made me feel really bloated around 5pm.  My stomach started to hurt, I could feel it pushing against my pants and it didn't feel better when I changed into stretchy pants upon reaching home.  I felt gassy.  Not sure what I ate that did that.  I didn't change my diet very much at all.  Then I got home and Nathan was mad at me for something, cause I was a bit of an idiot.  I lost a little control and had some potatoes with butter and a little of the brussel sprouts that I made for Nathan.  The only thing wrong with the sprouts was the processed butter sauce that it comes packaged with.  I made a delicious pork roast in the oven rubbed with salt and garlic powder.  So I ate two slices of that.  Then I still felt like I needed more and had some 90% cacao.  Oh boy.  Not horrible decisions, it's just that I could tell, I knew it was directly related to how I was feeling, not about being hungry.  In fact I felt the opposite of hungry when I came home.  Oh well.  I definitely feel like I need exercise that is more intense than my Tae Kwon Do.  I'm really sad about that.  I love the sport, but I think the dojang I'm at isn't competitive enough and doesn't workout hard enough.  I leave feeling tired... but only a little.  Just going to enjoy the rest of my wait until my vacay, do a shit-ton of work at work and get the house ready for Nathan's mom.  She's coming on November 3.  Hope you all ate better than I did and had a more intense workout than I did.  G'night!

The Truth

The Devil

I will not lie to you readers, on Saturday night I was completely unable to have just one glass of wine.  If you're trying not to drink, don't volunteer at a community event as a wine pourer.  Don't get me wrong, it was a blast.  Our costumes rocked and there was some really tasty food.  I did my best to stick to the meats, but I know that the sauces were full of everything that makes me bloated.  I'm sure there was sugar in there.  That's why I couldn't stop.  I kept going back for more- not for the turkey with no sauce, but for the meatballs and mushrooms drenched in some kind of manufactured bliss.  It was really difficult to stay away from it.  I did try some of the cheeses, I thought they would be higher quality, but they weren't.  So long story short, a good time was had, wine was drunk, meatballs were gorged upon and then I barfed all over my shower because I was too drunk to aim for the toilet.  Poor Nathan probably had a good reason to divorce me that night, it was really not pretty.
The good news:  eating healthy reduces the hangover effect.  I'm sure of it.  Normally my Sunday would have been nothing but groaning and wishing I could fall back asleep.  I wouldn't have moved from couch if I could have gotten myself there.  Not this time.  I woke up at 6:15am, cleaned out the showers- yes showers, I puked in both of them, did some dishes, caught up on this season of Fringe, and then sewed myself a dress.  I walked the dogs a few times.  I could see how the bad eating on Saturday night wanted to suck me back into the horrible cycle of empty carbs.  I woke up, considered what to eat and had a fried banana and eggs.  Doesn't sound delicious, but it was.  A cup of black coffee and some water did me for a few hours.  Then I took a quick nap and Nathan ordered a pizza and wings while I was down.  I had some of the thin crust pizza and then I had more... and I realized what was happening.  I was being sucked into the vortex of a bad eating frenzy.  Even after recognizing it I still had another piece of pizza later that evening and a few tastes of Nathan's Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  But, I didn't shame myself or beat myself over the head with guilt.  Instead I threw down some paleo-friendly snacks and food in between.  I had purple grapes, almonds, raisins and walnuts in no particular order.  For dinner I ate a huge steak and nothing else.  After I tasted Nathan's ice cream I had a bite of my 90% cacao bar and that satisfied the buds.
Like I said, this challenge is about really exploring how to make this a lifestyle change.  I don't think I was 100% effective this weekend, but I can use this as a learning experience.  Next time I am faced with a pizza I'm thinking I should take a piece and bring over a whole bunch of healthy snack to eat with it.  I know it sounds like I ate a whole bunch this weekend, and I did, but it could have been (and has been previously) much worse.  I was able to slow the demons and then halt them after a while.  Good business.  This morning I woke up feeling pretty great, walked the doggies and had eggs with ochra of all things.  (It was on sale at Safeway and is actually really good.)
This week I'm going to be pretty strict, especially as I get closer to heading home.  I want to be at my best.  I'm already feeling and looking really good.  Peace y'all.

Day 11 of Challenge

Well, the magical quality of my challenge is long past.  The first couple of days there is usually that psyched up feeling of yeah, I'm doing something awesome!  Then there's the next couple of days where your body changes if your challenge involves any big difference in health or diet.  Then the plateau comes.  I have hit that point.  The other day I couldn't help myself and had a taste of this cake from Costco.  That was the only time I've broken form in the past 11 days.  Otherwise, I've been doing really great.  Now it's just same old, same old.  The magic is gone.  At least I don't have dreams about eating cake or cookies or milk like I used to back in January.  That was rough!  Anyone who did the original Whole 30 challenge with me in January can attest to how horrible those dreams are.  The guilt!  I don't have that anymore.  I know that if I eat something like that my life will not end.
This latest challenge, I have discovered over the last few days, is not actually about eating 100% paleo or strict anything.  It is a way for me to learn how to eat healthy and remain that way at a stable pace.  This past year I have gone from strict paleo and skinny to alcoholic binge cake eater and 140, and up and down, and up and down... and now I'm trying to even it out.  I want to learn how to eat awesome and not be an asshole.  That means that sometimes your office will have something like Boss' Day, spend a lot of money on a cake, and be offended if you don't eat some.  Usually that would result in me being an asshole and refusing any, or having a small piece, and then a bigger piece, and then a BIGGER piece and then go home and drink and snack because, what the hell, I ate bad all day anyway, didn't I?  On Monday I had a small piece of cake.  It stared at me for the rest of the day because we had a meeting in the room with the cake.  Then I had another small taste, and then... I stopped.  I went home and ate some almonds and raisins.  I made my planned steak and salad dinner.  I didn't raid the fridge for dessert, although I have some 86% chocolate in the freezer for those times that I'm feeling a little desperate.  I have maintained and I think that lesson is even more important for me this time around then losing a lot of weight because I'm eating better.  I don't want to be the yo-yo dieter.  I want to always eat awesome.  But I want to be able to have a gin and tonic or a glass of wine.  Can I have both?  I think it's probably possible.
The other thing I've noticed over the course of this challenge is that, unfortunately, it's looking like Tae Kwon Do is not enough exercise for me.  Last night I had what used to be an intense workout for me and today I'm not tired or even slightly sore.  I'm no masochist, I don't enjoy the pain post-workout, but let's be honest, I don't want to be semi-in shape.  I want to be really in shape.  I'm thinking that I am going to test for my orange belt in November, maybe test for my green belt in January.  By that time I'll definitely be done.  I might not even continue after my orange belt.  I may switch to cross fit.  I don't really want to be that guy that changes sports like they change their underwear, but the truth is I need to find the right sport that meets my standards.  It needs to be a hard, challenging workout.  It needs to keep me entertained (nothing really repetitive or boring).  I need to have some friends with me.  And I need someone (a coach) to tell me what to do.  So far I haven't found any sport that has met those standards.  I would love it if my friends wanted to do volleyball or Tae Kwon Do, or Kickboxing, but they don't.  I love Tae Kwon Do in general, but it's often not challenging enough for me and they don't compete.  Which is good, cause I don't want to get punched in the head, but at the same time, I need something to push me forward.

Being a good girl

So proud of myself.  Last night was Ananda's birthday celebration at a local restaurant.  I did not have any wine, fondue, fried calamari, or dipping sauce.  I didn't want to be an asshole, it was a birthday celebration after all, so I ordered a gin and tonic, nursed it all night and pounded water.  I had some of their sweet potato fries without their dipping sauce.  I had a very small taste of the Tiramisu they gave Ananda for her birthday and tasted the chocolate cake that Nathan got for himself.  A very small taste on the end of my spoon.  The smartest thing I did was fill myself up with the meatballs and sauce I made before we left.  I ate more than I normally would.  The smart thing about that was that I was already over full with good food and only had one or two bites to taste, I wasn't hungry or even very tempted.  It also helped that I finished my workout an hour and a half before getting there.  I'm never really hungry after a workout.
The best part about it all is how freaking good I feel this morning.  Not the way I usually feel after spending a fun night with the group.  And I had a fantastic time!  I didn't have less fun because I wasn't drinking or snacking.  I had a blast!  And I didn't feel like I was getting drowsy when it was time to leave.  I was tired, but it was a good, it's time to go to bed soon because it's late feeling, not a holy balls I'm drunk and need to lay down feeling.  I also didn't come home and snack on every unhealthy food I could find.  I just had some more water and went to bed.  Awesome night.