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General Weight Loss Tips

Birthday Food

I have a secret to share. Are you ready? If it’s your birthday, and you approve of my cooking, there’s a good chance I’ll make you something delcious to eat. Because I love you. Just ask my husband.

For his birthday I put together this easy Vietnamese dish that happens to be one of our restuarant favorites. It’s a good thing I know how to make it because the nearest Vietnamese restaurant is three hours a way.

This dish hits all the important notes, sweet, savory, slightly salty, tangy and a little sour.

Grilled Pork Vermicelli with Nuoc Cham Sauce

This recipe is extremely easy to put together. And I love that because it looks pretty darn impressive. Here’s what you do. Purchase a small roast of pork picnic/shoulder/roast. I’ve bought this cut of meat many times and it’s gross and big. I’ve warned you. I use a sharp knife and slice off the layer of fat from the roast and then I cut thin 1/4 inch slices of meat for marinating.

For the marinate I’ve made this Nuoc Cham Sauce several times without fail. Chopped greens onions are helpful too. Let your pork marinade in half the recipe of Nuoc Cham Sauce for 1-4 hours.

I boil water for vermicelli or angel hair pasta. Once the pasta is cooked rinse it under cold water and portion into bowls.

Grill pork inside on a griddle or outside. This is important, the grill makes it magical.

Chop up a few carrots, peanuts or cashews, ice burg lettuce (this is one dish where ice burg makes all the difference), cilantro or mint, and cucumbers. A wedge of lime and bean sprouts are good too.

Arrange all the ingredients in the bowl and top with more Nuoc Cham Sauce. Sprinkle with peanuts. So, so good!

Please let me know if you make this dish, only so we can talk about how awesome it is.

I wanted to share a couple more things with you.

First, here is a photo Josh took of the cats and rabbit on the bed. I wasn’t in the house when this went down.

Yup two cats and a rabbit on our bed. Nothing strange about that. Apparently the rabbit scared the cats away.

In other news, I’ve been taking one-two days a week off of my “eating better for me” plan to enjoy carbs. It hasn’t hindered my weight loss too much as I’m down 15 lbs. so far. It’s helpful to be flexible, and I’m honestly okay with it as long as I continue to count calories.

And for even more news, I’ve been cleaning out my office because I’ve hired a real live project manager to work with me three days a week in my home office. This is a big deal, as I’ve dreamed of working on projects with another person since I started my business(es) a year ago. It’s scary and exciting to have someone to give work to. I just love that I’m in a place right now to afford health insurance and hire a part time employee. Trying to stay positive, and not negative which is a default of mine when things start going well. I worry about the most insane things when things start going well. Am I alone here?

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General Weight Loss Tips

What I Need

I’ve come to realize that what I need in life to be happy, is much different than what I always thought I would need. For most of my life I believed that hard work and sacrifice meant pain, uncomfort, and burnout. I would avoid these feelings  by quitting. This isn’t to say that I wasn’t a hard worker or a good employee, student etc. I just never applied myself, as they say. I knew how to complete a task for something else, but not for myself. I would get so far as the first or second bump and decide it wasn’t for me. Move on and continue the cycle.

Coincidentally, my adult life has been filled with bouts of anxiety, depression and insecurity. Just a slight feeling of unease that I was always trying to suffocate with excesses. Material items, food, and neediness have all been the way that I would cope. Often I would just hole up and wish the pain away. I thought these feelings were a result of what I was missing in my life, rather than what I wasn’t doing.

But lately, as in, the past couple of months. This course has changed. I’ve come to realize that my past actions of inactivity made the feelings worse. And thus the cycle of never being fulfilled. What makes me happy now is so far removed from what I wanted to believe would make me happy. Shopping or a pint of ice cream. They are like alcohol to the flame. They are good in the moment, but never filled the gap.

Today, as I write this, I’ve found that completion makes me happy. If I set out to do something in a day, I’m not content until it’s done. Inactivity makes me anxious. I notice that when I slide out of my good habits, old feelings begin to creep up again.

The funny/weird thing about all of this, is that I’ve rejected the notion that energy=energy. I always thought that I needed to reserve my energy to gain it, but I only get positive energy when I put it out there.

Today happiness looks like this to me:

– A balanced diet. This means eating when I’m hungry, stopping when I’m full. Eating what I only truly love to eat, not because I used to think it was indulgent, but genuinly enjoying the meal. Vegetables and fruit are also very important for this balance.

– Exercise. Any sort of movement is absolutely neccessary for me to deal with stress and anxiety. Even if the movement is cleaning the bedroom, clearning off the deck, or washing a load of dishes. Movement in all forms makes me feel better.

–Focused work. Everyday I have a set list of tasks. I’ve gotten in the habit of setting a timer for 30 minutes just to get started. If I am overwhelmed with projects I say to myself “just do something–anything”. Checking off items on my to-do list brings me so much pride and contentment.

– Time to relax, alone. I find that my work/life balance is only in harmony when I have time to do absolutely nothing. It feels better and is more appreciated when it’s earned. I have never been bored a day in my life. I could sit on the couch and read for hours and be totally happy. I could sit with a notebook and pen and write and draw until my hearts content. I look forward to doing nothing, I cherish the art of inactivity only when it’s balanced with work.

– Making things happen. I’ve always struggled with the notion that things just happened. Growing up we are sent to school, then we are sent to high school and then, sometimes we make our way to college. This course is set out for us. And the whole “making things happen” idea missed me. I had no concept of making my dreams come true. When there wasn’t a clear path or map to my destination I got lost. I didn’t understand how the world worked, how businesses were ran. I just assumed that I was destined to follow course and just move on to a normal job with a steady paycheck. And then I woke up and realized that everything is totally up to me. And I was scared, am still scared, but figuring it out anyway.

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Categories
General Weight Loss Tips

Food History: The Founding Foodies

Since our trip to Monticello a week and a half ago, I’ve been a little consumed with all things Thomas Jefferson. I’ve watched two documentaries (though I’ve fallen asleep- a habit of mine), and am now reading The Founding Foodies by Dave DeWitt.


I’m very interested and slightly obsessed with knowing how and what people ate. Did food taste the same? Where did they get their food? I know that Thomas Jefferson was a big fan of ice cream, wine (and making wine jelly), macaroni and cheese and ate more vegetables than meat. During colonial times pigs, followed by fish were the main sources of protein.

I’m not someone who believes that we should eat exactly like our ancestors (yes, another contradiction) mainly because food wasn’t regarded as it is today. They ate what they had access to and just didn’t have the information that we have today. Food history, like all history, is complex. It weaves and turns and sometimes, like now, it just doesn’t always make sense. Though, I will say that I’m even more convinced that the modern overeating/fat issue derives from having too much convenience food. It’s easier now to pack away the food than it was a hundred or more years ago.

I don’t believe that history makes something authentic. It’s easy to get caught up in the “good ol’ days” mentality. That unless people were doing it, listening to it, or eating it a hundred years ago means we should be doing the exact same things today. I wouldn’t trade my modern freedoms for the past, but I will happily pick and choose lessons from another time.

Before, if you wanted ice cream you had to find a source of cream which wasn’t always available. Then you had to find sugar which was heavily taxed at certain points in history. And then you had to churn it (or in Jefferson’s case, have it churned for you) with a hand crank. And then after all that, you probably didn’t have a whole gallon to yourself.  There were guests, and children who were vying for a scoop too. It’s not ice cream that is the problem. It’s the abundance and ease to which ice cream comes today. I could plop down $5 at my local grocer and get a decent pint, or gallon of ice cream depending on my mood. And if there’s  a sale, I could buy one and get one free.

Not to mention that most of the cheaper varieties come from abused and medicated cows. The sugar is replaced with corn (did you know that Benjamin Franklin loved corn and may have started the corn crop popularity in America? He often made beer from corn sugar among other things.)

This is what Michael Pollen means, in Food Rules, when he says if you want junk food, make it yourself. This is why I’ve often said to people what you see me eat, isn’t the reason for my weight. A normal portion of pretty much anything won’t make you fat. My excess weight comes from the indulgences you don’t see. The abundance that is hard to control. Because it is so easy to just eat and eat and eat. It’s cheap.

What if we had to source the ingredients for all the food that we overeat today? What if I had to kill a cow and clean it every time I wanted a burger? What if I had to grow the potatoes, harvest them, cut them, fry them every time I wanted a french fry?  Or milk a cow, skim the cream, find the sugar, hand churn the ice cream? It would take real work and maybe a better appreciation for food when actual work is involved with consumption.

Taking a peak into history helps shift my perspective. And I’m left wondering how I can apply some of these principles to my modern life? Leave some of the stuff in the past, like heavy drinking, because I know better, but picking up the extra work involved with eating.

*************

Other updates. I finally lost my water weight and am thinking I’m going to add another 2-3 pound loss this week. I’ve gotten better at moderation, even with a couple of days off on the weekends. I’ve found that I can have moderate, portioned treats on the weekend without feeling guilty or totally derailing my efforts. More on all of this time come.

I’m going through a few personal/career changes, that are all very good at the moment. This means that I won’t be able to post or analyze my food and exercise consumption like I would like in the next month. This could be a good thing! I will still post when I can, and update my weight losses, but I won’t be able to document every time I exercise or eat eggs for breakfast. Just know that I’m still around doing what I need to do, I just have a little less internet time until things settle in around September.