Holiday Thoughts

November and December are tricky times to be working on your health and staying focused on healthy eating. With all the holidays there are constant cookies, cakes, and get togethers that offer the opportunity to eat far beyond your calorie limit. There's days off with your family that you may not have had in months, which beg for sleeping in and doing things that aren't working out and you cannot forget the addition of nearly constant family dynamics for two months. It's very hard to work out how to visit all the family members, deal with the special blend of personality each family group has, and try to keep yourself focused and dedicated to a health plan and lifestyle change. 

Thankfully Noom has given me some good insight in to the way I eat, some of the triggers that lead me to overeat, and a better handle on giving myself permission to indulge without eating the whole pumpkin pie. 

My biggest struggle right now is staying focused on the now, the moment we're in right now. My mind is very happy to wander off and think about the next thing I'm going to do, instead of paying attention to how the food I'm eating is tasting, feeling, smelling, etc. 

And since I am trying to get back into a workout habit I've joined an accountability group/bootcamp for December and I'm starting the BeachBody program TurboFire. I've already done the first workout a few times, and let me tell you this workout is intense. 

This time however, instead of trying to follow the calendar for the program religiously, I am going to take my time to get down the basic moves and understand the fundamentals of the program before I move forward. 

So far the only area of "conflict" between doing Noom and adding in a BeachBody workout plan, is the difference in caloric intake the two programs recommend. That said I am going to work with my Noom Coach to help balance that out, and I am sure I can blend the two programs pretty seamlessly. 

So this weeks goals:

1. Be more mindful - eating, listening, just being in the world stay in the Now
2. Create the workout habit - I'm working out in the morning, I've put it on the calendar and made it a date with myself. 
3. Kept working towards work/life balance - it's time to set boundaries and make sure I am taking care of myself.

What are your goals for the week? 

The Journey Still Continues

Hello it is me! I am still around and still wrestling with achieving health, wellbeing, and finding a sustainable method of feeding and nourishing myself for the long haul.

I'm doing a few things towards these goals:

1. I've joined Noom to work on the psychological side of my food demons. I'm only a week in but I already am liking the program. I've lost 4lbs this week - which is awesome, however I am trying not to focus on the scale but instead on sustainable life changes.
2. I've been subscribed to Beach Body on Demand for just over a year. BOD provides access to workouts, nutrition, recipes, etc. 
3. I'm avoiding dairy as much as I can. This is tough and involves a lot of label reading and investigation as I travel for work and end up eating a restaurants a lot. However it's been going well. 

I'm hoping that by combining all these aspects and focusing on the other dietary restrictions/concerns we have in our house (gluten intolerance, vegetarian, and working through a low FODmap experiment) I will be able to find harmony with food and stop seeing it as such an integral part of everything in life. 

Think about it, have you ever noticed that nearly everything links back to food? 

Bad day? Treat yourself with a nice dinner, cookies, or ice cream. 

Good day? Celebrate with a meal!

Seeing friends you haven't caught up with in a long time? Go to dinner! Everyone has to eat. 

Somehow food has ingrained its' way into every single social undertaking of the day. Now don't get me wrong, I understand where this comes from. The origin of our species and how we have adapted to survive made food some of the earliest glue that held groups together. 

I think really what we are facing is an incredible trial of evolution versus human ingenuity. We've overcome so much of what our base needs are as a creature to survive that we've gone right passed equilibrium to the opposite end of the spectrum. 

So, for my accountability and to perhaps help someone else out there in the world, I will be updating this blog at least weekly with my progress. 

I'll also be posting recipes of new dishes I've been making. 

Today's recipe doesn't have a picture but is for Steel Cut Oat Coconut Porridge. 

Steel Cut Oat Coconut Porridge

1 cup quick cook steel cut oats

1 can full fat coconut milk combined with water to make 3 cups total liquid

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp vanilla extract

1.       Place the coconut milk, cinnamon, and vanilla in a heavy bottomed pot. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Stir frequently to prevent the milk from scalding.

2.       Add the oats and whisk together to break up any clumps. Reduce the heat to medium and cover. Cook for seven minutes stirring frequently.

3.       Top with nuts, chopped ginger, or other toppings as desired.

This will keep in the fridge for a day or two.

Here's to another week! 

And Then....

So I am still having a food crisis struggle and the main thing is that I am still deeply craving a burger and fries from a fast food locale. I call this a crisis because I decided to honor the craving on Friday and I got a burger (bunless) and fries (wedges made from real potatoes) at a restaurant. I say I honored it but I didn't really consciously think about what I was doing until after we had decided to eat - but that's neither here nor there. The point is that I had WHAT I was craving and yet my mind/body still thinks I want it. That wasn't the end of it either - I had a not so great food weekend. I ate cheese (so good, but so bad for my body) and I had some donuts (sugar, check. Dairy, check. Wheat, check). I think I was able to balance those choices out in the long run, but I still had a few moments where I could see that doing what I did was giving into my food troubles.

Couple that with the fact that Logician looked at me several times this weekend and exclaimed: "Wow you really do struggle with food." And you have a recipe for an ongoing food struggle. Apparently, although we've been together over eight years, he only just now is grasping how hard I fight with what I put into my face. Which means that perhaps I am really good at hiding my struggle.

Or at least I have become better at it. There was a time when I would convince Logician to get fast food almost all the time. My laziness coupled with my absolute addiction to cheese burgers was not doing us any favors for the first several years we were together. When he called me out on it I thought I got better... I realize now I just stopped including him. I started getting fast food when I was alone, using all manner of "I'm so busy" excuses to provide me the license to do so.

And the worst part is I never really told him about it. Now that I look hard at the behaviors I had I was hiding it, actively hiding it too. I would make sure I threw out the trash either while I was out or upstairs/somewhere he might not realize it. And I wouldn't really talk about what I had eaten during the day.

What gives?

I'm not really sure. Guilt? Shame? The emotional vulnerability?

Maybe.

But more likely it was a combination of that and the fact that to me, on the outside, it didn't seem wrong. I was just eating food that I could grab quickly and cheaply. I didn't consider that I was soothing stress on a day where my schedule shifted and I was running behind or that I was stressed about life and trying to soothe those emotions. I was just busy and needed quick food. I have noticed, in others and now in myself, that it is incredibly easy to make excuses about why you CAN'T eat the things you SHOULD and why you CAN eat the things you SHOULDN'T.

So what I tried to do was be gentle with myself. Okay, I had some cheese so I'll make sure I cut back on something else (in this case it worked one night and not the other). Or I had donuts so I skipped other dairy filled options throughout the rest of my day. And I got my butt out of bed this morning and went to the gym.

And that's one of the best things I could have done! Because not only did I feel excited about being at the gym, but it got me outside early enough to see that Orion (the constellation) is back in the sky here in Florida. Which means my favorite seasons of fall and winter are coming. And that always gets me pumped up.

I'm still fighting the craving. I want pizza or a burger or chicken nuggets or some other fast food nonsense that my body will hate. So instead I made myself some ramen (that sounds bad I know, but I threw away the flavor packet, added mushrooms, parsley, cilantro, green onion, and garlic to bone broth and my own seasonings) and I'm going to make rice for dinner (rice is like my new number one comfort food). Not the best solutions but better than going to get that whopper and coke...

Be well!

Struggling with Food

Hello readers! I apologize that I once again disappeared, however that does seem to be sadly the way that things go. I am going to be changing the direction of this blog a little bit, and in a way that's absolutely terrifying to me to say. Why?

Because I have decided to use this as a vehicle to fight one of my biggest battles in trying to become a healthier adult - food. To me using this blog as a vehicle in this struggle is terrifying because it means being vulnerable. It means being open about how much I struggle with what I put in my mouth and the reasons why I put it there. I have a huge issue with food and I'm tired of feeling alone when I struggle. I know other people struggle like I do, and so I'm going to turn to the internet (trolls and all) and see what happens.

I constantly struggle with food. Every time I eat it's a battle and sometimes the battle happens when I'm not hungry. Because I eat for celebration, I eat for grieving, I eat for social contact, and I eat when I'm bored. I stress eat, I emotionally eat, and I unconsciously eat. Even after making conscious decisions about WHAT I eat I find I will unconsciously eat TOO much.

So here you have it - I struggle with food and now I'm going to try to work out why, how to change it, and how to stop the struggle.

Food has always been a huge part of my life, I could reason that it's because family and friend gatherings often focused around dinner or some other food occasion (i.e. birthdays, holidays, funerals, etc), but I don't think figuring out exactly when the shift came from food to bad food happened is going to really help matters. Maybe I'll figure it out anyway, who knows. What I do know is that around the time I was more capable and more in charge of what I put in my body to fuel it my choices went all screwy and I began to choose fat, salt, and grease over health and well-being.

Part of this I know is due to money, let's face it the majority of people in America today are struggling financially. I saw a report just this morning that said most people are paying over 30% of their paychecks just to have a roof over their head! Add in taxes and then you've got quite a big chunk of money disappearing from the budget. Part is also that for a good part of the last fifteen years I have had complete control over what I buy and no knowledge of nutrition. I bought food in college based on what I felt like eating in that moment, not based on whether or not it was healthy. I ate to soothe my depression which meant eating Wendy's even though the Dining Halls had amazingly healthy options and I had a meal plan. Or eating McDonald's because it was fast and cheap and I was too busy to stop and eat something from home.

Or whatever excuse I felt like making for that moment.

That's right - an excuse. I can say this because I know for a fact that's what it is. I'm too busy was constantly a mantra I used to license myself to eat fast food. To give myself permission for the 10 seconds of joy that comes from salty french fries, fountain coke, and a greasy burger. I need the calories and can worry about nutrition later - this was a newer one I started using before I told myself to grow up and be serious. Thankfully I caught myself before it became a habit.

And so right now I am struggling with food. I'm struggling with an internal battle of go get Wendy's because I'm depressed about my career and financial situation and my body thinks the brief euphoria of the fat, sugar, and salt will somehow overcome the fact that nothing will have changed in the 10 minutes it will take me to consume more calories than I need in a day.

I don't know what the allure is of that 10 minute pick me up, especially when I know that the next moment I will feel bloated and sick. I'll begin to feel guilty almost at the same time the chemicals explode in my brain as I take the first bite of the burger or chicken sandwich. I'll remember the inhumane conditions the food was raised in, the workers toil in, and the process happens in that made the food like substances in my hands and then I'll feel more shame and guilt for buying into that system...

So why?

And today... I just don't know why....

I'm not going to give in today. I've bargained with myself - I'll buy myself a smoothie instead (from a decent place that uses actual fruits and veggies to make said smoothie), but I'm still not happy with the answer...

Maybe if I keep writing these, I'll find a better one.

Be well.

--- Edited ---

I ran away from the computer after I posted this so that I could get ready for work and go get said smoothie. As I looked at the clock I realized I was over an hour earlier than I wanted to leave. Yea... Being open about food doesn't feel so open right about now.

So I came back to think more on this struggle that is causing me to feel on the edge of an anxiety attack right now. The struggle between loving my body and shoving my emotions away. Between eating something I know provides my body health and nutrition and something that gives me ten minutes of peace from a swirling multitude of emotion I don't want to look at. It doesn't help that there are triggers and signs EVERYWHERE around me. A simple drive down the street can be a challenge when you struggle with food. Fast food restaurants are everywhere, people are always posting about food online, or where they're going to dinner, or some party/event they went to with some snazzy food center piece.

Right now I am reading two books, the first is called What the Fork are you Eating? and the other is called The Omnivore's Dilemma. I was inspired to get back into reading/watching/learning about food when I finally sat down and watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead 2. Something I had put off for a long time for a really stupid reason.

You see when we watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead two years ago, it struck a cord in me. It reminded me how far away from the natural world I had gotten and how much I missed it. But it also brought me to a crossroads in my life. I started making changes, did three juice fasts, and then suddenly I got sick! I was so angry! How could it be that I start to try to make changes and then I get sick? Why bother if eating healthy was going to make me sick anyway? (can you see how the cycle is going?)

In reality I blamed outside forces (the shame/blame game) for something I was not wanting to admit to myself - while I was making healthier choices SOME of the time, I was really not changing much the rest of the time. I still grabbed fast food when I was time crunched/stressed/upset/happy/etc. The only difference was I didn't get a double whopper with cheese, I got a whopper with no cheese. I still got a large fry and a large sprite, but I didn't get a coke or onion ring. Yea - not really healthy is it? As it was my gall attack that led to my surgery was brought on by having a super chicken supreme stuffed crust pizza AKA all of the things that my body couldn't do anything with - dairy, gluten, and oil.

I let this blame argument continue on for a long time. I would hit periods where I would start to make healthier choices again, but the life would happen and I'd run right back to my fast food. Even going so far as looking up "healthy" fast food choices. That was when I finally realized I wasn't doing myself any favors. It's been a slow journey over the last several months to turn my attention back to myself and to shoulder the blame for the situation I'm in. I'm very grateful to have Logician's support in going to the gym and trying to make dietary changes. I'm also lucky he doesn't mind when I go through food doc binge watches and reading splurges like I am now.

But the first thing I have to do, that I'm struggling to do right now, is to accept that I am the one in control of this and I am the one who can change it. No one else can... So that's the real reason I'm here. If I write it here, I have to own it. If I own it I have to accept it. And if I accept it then I have to change it.

Thanks for listening.

Real Food is Awesome

So it's been an interesting bit of time dealing with the fallout of the surgery but I can happily say I am eating normally (well, not old normally - but normal food normally) and digestion seems to be going well. I've even been able to start adding back in Greek Yogurt and Sheep and Goat Milk Cheeses without too much effect. I cannot begin to tell you how amazingly happy this makes me.

I also cannot tell you what an eye opener this has been. I had my follow up with the surgeon today and he informed me that I actually had Necrotizing Cholecystitis (on it's way to gangrene). Which basically boils down to my gallbladder was dying and beginning to become toxic to my body. Which may explain a lot of the food issues I have been having. It also makes me feel really lucky to be here, because of the research I could find it suggested that what I had was mere steps away from becoming sepsis - which and often does kill.

So I have two options now - go back to the way things were and basically have IBS type symptoms my whole life or completely shift my eating paradigm and really heal. I (We really) have chosen the latter. To do what we've been trying to do all along. So far we've done really well. The most important steps I am taking are the following:

• Step 1 - Adjust Overall Diet
• Adjust portions - Smaller meals when I feel hungry and eating less at each meal. I feel like I am a bit more intune with my body now and can more adequately understand my full signals but I want to stick with it.
• Food Diary - I am going to make an effort for the next month or two to keep a food diary, starting today. This should allow me to monitor how my body seems to be responding to certain foods both at the time of eating them and over the course of the day. This is also how I plan to become more aware of my digestion as unpleasant a subject as it can sometimes be.
• Rethink my food pyramid - This one is going to take careful thought and planning. I know now that 'fad' diets and multiple juicing fasts aren't going to help my body truly heal. Instead I need to adjust the entire picture. 
• COOK! - This one is the most important both to changing and to this lovely blog. I'm also hoping it will help me increase my posting rate here. Cooking at home is the only way I am going to know exactly what is in my food, so it just needs to happen. Plain and simple.
• Increase Water - This one is by far one of the most important to me. I deluded myself into thinking I was okay drinking clear sodas, iced tea, and the like. They're fine but I need to be sure I am taking in water also. So I'm working on toting around a 3L bottle of water with me and it is my eventual goal to drink one full bottle (or more) a day.
• Step 2 - Adjust Meat Intake:
• No Beef - I have been cutting down on red meat intake anyway due to eating far more than I would/should ever have needed to in the first twenty nine years of my life.
• Little to no pork - I really shouldn't have pork but we have a local farmer who humanely raises and kills his animals with the help of a local butcher. So I will allow myself to occasionally (really, really occasionally) have leaner cuts.
• Fish - to be enjoyed abundantly but with caution of the overly oily varieties
• Chicken - boneless, skinless only - with preference to leaner cuts.
• Decrease total consumption - I have had nothing better to do than watch several (about five) food documentaries, read several nutritional related blogs, websites, and books since the surgery and have decided that instead of following the Standard American Diet (SAD) I am going to adjust and have meat be an addition instead of the main focus.
• Step 3 - Paying more attention to grains - 
• Wheat - I am aiming for gluten free, but if I have wheat it will be whole grain with as few additives as possible.
• Rice - I have been told it is better to do brown over white, so we have been cooking more brown rice. But I know white rice is still going to always be my favorite. Especially in sushi.
• Corn - This one is tough as it is in absolutely everything! But I plan to really ingredient watch and remove corn syrups from my diet.
• Baking - make homemade treats as often as possible using allergy free recipes. 
• Step 4 - The ongoing war with dairy - This one is by far the most exciting and tricky for me. I intend to continue towards a more vegetarian/vegan style of baking and cooking but some of the research suggests I need to include some items in to help my body process food.
• Yogurt - Begin eating Greek Style yogurt (one containing as few additives as possible and if possible also organic or at least stating no growth hormones or antibiotics were used). So far this has worked out well and I need the probiotics and live cultures to help my body break down foods. I have tried Goat's milk yogurt and could not eat it, but enjoyed baking with it. I also did not like soy yogurt. I will still be experimenting with Vegan alternatives.
• Cheese - Sheeps and Goats milk are preferred, especially aged cheeses. I will eventually try eating some Cow's milk cheese but I want to be a bit further down the road before I potentially tax my system so much. Still to be consumed in low amounts and avoided if possible. I plan on purchasing some Nutritional Yeast to use in place of cheese in most instances and experimenting with making Vegan Cheeses in the future.
• Milk - I have found I prefer Almond Milk to almost anything else these days, so I intend to stick with it. I also prefer Coconut Whipped Cream. I am however trying to avoid Soy as it can be bad for me so I will be working on alternatives for that as well.
• Step 5 - Super charge Vegetable and Fruit intake - 
• Vegetables - It is my intention to move towards making vegetables the majority of my meals rather than a minority. I also want to work towards consuming more raw vegetables and more dark leafy greens. In fact we made an amazing salad with kale and arugula last night. A Kale salad, who knew?! I have heard so many statistics and numbers about how much of your diet should be raw, and yet I have also seen so many areas that suggest you can't eat too much raw without your gallbladder. So I'm just going to increase my veggies (via raw, lightly cooked, and juiced varieties) and see how my body handles it.
• Fruit - I have to water down apple and pear juice. It blows my mind. The juice is delicious to me but is far too sweet so I am forced to water it down. A very good problem to have! Apple and pear juices seem to come recommended for gallbladder issues so I have no problem continuing to include them (both homemade and not from concentrate, additive free store bought). 

So take all of that, add in that I will be watching what fats I consume (as in oil based) and trying to keep to a homemade agenda and things should go pretty amazingly. Already I have been feeling amazing with the meals Logician made me and the ones we worked together on. My first temptation since surgery was sugar. I craved sugary things. He had bought regular cookies for a study session and almost all of them came home. We ate them, but I felt bad about the additives and sugars in them. So when the craving came back I made homemade allergy free treats to help. 

The first were these Sugar Cookies. I tempted fate by making substitutions - Trader Joe's Gluten Free Flour Blend, Coconut Sugar, and almond milk - but they came out okay. Not great, but okay. I'm not sure if I made them too small or if I missed a step but they came out very flat and super grainy in the middle. Though once we dolloped on some coconut whipped cream they were just dandy.

The second turned out better - Vegan Blackberry Lemon Ginger Muffins, and by better I mean amazing. I did make a few substitutions here as well, again almond milk instead of rice; golden flaxseed meal instead of regular ground flaxseeds. They were still pretty incredible.

So everything was prepared and ready to go pretty easily. We were out of coconut sugar so I used regular white refined sugar (grumpy faces were made) but I am glad I did. If I had used a liquid sweetener (maple, honey, or agave) I think they would have been too moist. I used homemade young crystalized ginger that had been hanging out in the fridge for awhile, next time I might try fresh (in a smaller amount).

 I also chose to bake them in cupcake liners just to see what would happen. The result was they stuck just as much in the wrapper as they would have in the pan. You live and learn! I also used regular white confectioners sugar for the lemon glaze. However I look at it this way - we bought it and our pantry is full of stuff. We should use what we have instead of just tossing it because it doesn't 'fit the bill' as it were. These were not only amazing looking but they tasted great too. They were a little moist (I could have probably cooked them the extra few minutes) but I took them out as soon as the toothpick came out clean. With a little SF Earth Balance and the glaze they are one of my new favorite treats!

So far our other meals haven't been too exciting a lot of chicken, brown rice, and veggies. Though Logician did make a tasty curry soup, we had turkey tacos, and a few other fairly normal but more healthy version meals the last few weeks. Now to find more awesome things to cook!

Be well!

Little did I know...

I started off my last post discussing how I was having a food crisis. Little did I know, I truly was. I woke the next morning with terrible pain that I associated with bad dinner choices and a milk allergy. However that pain grew progressively worse within a short few hours and I ended up at our nearest Urgent Care clinic. I was sure I had food poisoning but Logician had none of the symptoms. Since we'd shared a pizza, it wouldn't fit that I would be sick and he wasn't.

So off I went to get an ultrasound and I learned that I had gallstones. This in an of itself is not a particularly frightening thing. According to most of the research I have done since something like 80% of people have these little buggers but only a smaller percentage (I think I read 20%) actually have what are called gallbladder 'attacks.' Lucky me....

I was told to I would have to have surgery and left the clinic awaiting a surgeon referral and staunchly saying I was going to try anything else (Acupuncture, Chinese Herbs, dietary changes, supplements, anything). I reread the report from the ultrasound technician and saw that a stone was overlying the opening to my gallbladder - I was concerned but certainly if it was a situation the doctor would have said... Or so I thought.

Now don't get me wrong here - I'm not bashing doctors of any form. They have reasons I will never know for what they tell me and don't tell me. I'm only saying that I likely should have asked more questions.

So Friday I developed a fever of 100.5. Now in my little brain I never before believed in going to the doctor unless you were dying (as I thought I was Wednesday) so a little fever was nothing to me. Thankfully Logician thinks differently and encouraged me to call the Urgent Care clinic for advice. The advice was to go to the ER. Hooray....

I was admitted to the hospital straight from the ER Friday evening and told I was going to have gallbladder surgery the next morning. The stone that was overlying the duct from my gallbladder was actually completely blocking the way and my gallbladder was working itself overtime to try to push passed the obstacle it faced (Sounds a lot like something I would do...). So it had to come out.

The surgery itself was short, sweet, and according to plan. I have four little holes (not really sure how else to describe them) with three around my gallbladder's former home and one in my belly button. I was released from the hospital the same night (partially I think due to the fact I desperately wanted to be home) and am now home. I can't work for two weeks and then I have to start back on light duty to see how that goes - the last thing I need to be doing is pushing my poor little abdomen around massaging people when it's been so traumatized! I can't lift over ten pounds and I am exhausted - all the time.

But this has given me so much time to consider how things were and a sort of fresh place to start from the change them. Having surgery on your 30th birthday is a hell of a way to break in a new decade if I say so myself. So now's the time to make changes, especially since my poor digestive system can't tolerate some of the abuses I used to throw at it! And I can promise that pizza Wednesday night will be the last chain restaurant pizza I ever eat! No more cravings there and if I do get some I'll find a way to make at home GF/DF/SF pizza that will be delicious!

Though this also poses a harder problem for me as I cannot quickly fix this. There is no magical quick diet that's going to help my body recover from what has been done. Instead now is the time I HAVE to make dietary changes.

The main changes I will be focusing on are:

- Going completely Gluten Free (GF): Logician can't have it and I have seen in my recent research that going GF can help with digestive issues moving forward from surgery. So this is a happy direction to go.

- Going completely Dairy Free (DF): I know, I already was supposed to be here. But I wasn't. I cheated (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) and my body suffered for it. But I CAN'T have anything full fat dairy since surgery anyway. The only exception here would be if my body can tolerate some sort of low fat, possibly Greek style yogurt. I have not been able to find a non-dairy yogurt that I like to eat on its' own. So for baking definitely sticking with DF/Soy Free options but eating will be a trial and error experiment in a few months.

- Going completely Soy Free (SF): This one is going to be the biggest challenge. We are already avoiding it as much as possible but we love Asian food and one of the staples of many recipes is Tofu. Tofu will likely be the only exception I will make but with limits. I will only buy organic (to ensure it is not genetically modified) and I will not eat it frequently. However soy milk, soy protein shakes, soy creamers, etc - out!

I'm going to have to relearn my body now. I almost feel like a child learning what is good and what is horrible. It's an interesting place to be sitting at thirty, that is for sure!

I can't do any sort of decent cooking for the short term future - but rest assured I will be trying new products and as soon as I can be back in the kitchen I will bring you more GF/DF/SF goodness!

Be well!

The Difficult Task of Food

No apologies this time. I've been gone and part of it has been because I have been having a personal crisis with food. And I do believe it qualifies for the word crisis.

Since discovering that I do have a dairy allergy it has become one of the biggest battles for me. I love cheese and there has yet to come across my taste buds a worthy alternative (though I'm currently beginning experiments with nutritional yeast). So I am easily tempted. Especially when it comes with bread. Seems like a pretty common weakness.

But it's driven me to gain back almost all of the weight I had lost between the Reboots and exercise. So that in turn makes me depressed, which of course makes me crave comfort foods... I think you can see the pattern starting here. Now add in some insomnia, a increasingly common sort of restless leg feeling, and fatigue and you have a monster of an issue. I can make excuses all day long about how I can't do this or that, but that's all they are.

So I have done a little branching out in the last few weeks, in the attempt to curb this nasty food habit that is creeping back up on me - and I've made the decision to go ahead and try another (much shorter) Reboot in a few weeks.

I can tell you one thing Maangchi is a life saver! We have recently made a new batch of Kimchi (and by we, I mean I. It was so much fun!) and tried out two new recipes. Though I was disappointed when I found out that the rice cakes I bought contained wheat.

First and foremost I kept promising pictures of the Kimchiguk and I finally have one for you! I may have more pictures but they are on Logician's phone and I don't think waking him for it is very polite.

It's not exactly a pretty picture but it shows the soup quite well. I usually make a double batch of Maangchi's recipe (Kimchiguk) and being the people we are we added in extra pork belly this last time. Though the next time I think we might try it with some fresh chicken (from our local farmer). Our newest batch of Kimchi is the best yet and it's already quite spicy even though it's been keeping in the fridge. I think it's going to make a really tasty soup!

The thing I love the most about using the Kimchi in this way is that it allows me to make more! I have way too much fun cutting up the cabbage, salting it, and making it into delicious fermented joy.


I bought two new items just for making Kimchi this time also. I bought a large plastic bowl (with cute teddy bears on it) and a large strainer. This made things SO much easier! I used the Easy Kimchi version of the recipe, though I have been wanting to make whole cabbage Kimchi also. I am going to try to get my hands on one of the clay pots here in the next few months. But it was so much easier to salt the cabbage, strain it, and rinse it with my two new kitchen helpers!

 The left picture is the cabbage soaking in it's cold water bath prior to being salted. The right hand picture shows the cabbage shortly after being salted. I like how the green stands against the pretty red of the strainer!

I tried to stay as close to the recipe as I could this time (finding 10 lbs of cabbage without a scale or patience is somewhat challenging) but I think I only ended up using about 6lbs of cabbage and I only had a cup and a half of pepper flakes left! I had to buy more for the next recipe I made that same day, but it was too late for the Kimchi.

That night I decided to keep going with the spicy theme and made Ddeokbokki. Which is a snack recipe on her website but was easily transformed into a meal with the addition of pork belly and lots of delicious vegetables. I could not bring myself to buy an entire bag of dried anchovies (which is about $20 here) as it's such a large bag and I wasn't sure if I could bring myself to use them. So instead I used five dried shitake mushrooms and the kombu. It was delicious. So much so I thought Logician might gobble it all up in one go! It's definitely something we will make again, likely in a vegetarian version (and maybe if we're lucky we can find/make rice cakes without gluten).

The last recipe I tried of hers (which will certainly not be the last ever) was for fried chicken. I choose to make this on a day we were both definitely needing comfort food, because I knew I could make it gluten free and dairy free. It turned out amazing (way better than expected) and even though it was fried it didn't taste like it at all! The recipe is called Yangnyeom-tongdak and it's a sort of sweet and spicy coated fried chicken. We ate it with kimchi and vegetables and it was perfect! I used only drumsticks (for ease) and for the gluten free flour replacement I used Bob's Red Mill Biscuit and Pie Crust mix (as we will never cook with it otherwise). I tried following Maangchi's method for breading the chicken and it didn't go well for me (think scramble egg and a bit of mushy flour) so I pressed what I could on the chicken, added another beaten egg and coated the chicken with the gluten free flour mix. It was so good. I want to make it right now and I'm not even hungry!

You'll notice some cupcakes hanging out there in the background - it was a new product we tested out. Betty Crocker has come out with boxed GF cake mixes and this one was on sale (likely on it's way out). The cupcakes are Devil's Food Chocolate Cupcakes with Funfetti icing (because there needed to be some badness involved). All in all it was a tasty comfort food dinner that allowed us to cheat a bit (with all the not so pleasant ingredients in the icing) and yet have a GFDF dinner and dessert.

The cakes were good, though a little dry and Logician reported that had I not told him they were GF he might not have known they were anything other than slightly dry cupcakes.

His birthday is in a few weeks (it will actually be right after my intended Reboot) and I am going to use Cybele Pascale's Red Velvet cake recipe to make Blue Velvet Cupcakes (which, interesting note I have found that Trader Joe's GF Flour mix is actually a very nice substitute for the blend she uses and it's much cheaper even if the end result is a hair grittier than it would be otherwise). I will likely also try my hand as some sort of dairy free mock cream cheese style icing for said cupcakes.

With the chicken being such a big hit I may make it again or I may try my hand at making a sort of veggie tempura coated with this same batter. I'll have to see how I'm feeling at the time!

Either way I will have some more kitchen adventures for you soon, including a daily update of my Reboot (I am planning on starting on the 20th of July as I have a long weekend (It will be a five day Reboot, with me only working on day 1). I intend to do just straight juice and protein shakes (we've been using a Raw GF/DF/SF powder mix) and we will see what happens! Hopefully if nothing else it breaks this vicious cycle of cheese craving!

Eat well!