6WC: Day 6 - Now that's a fruit salad!

I've been a little burned out on green smoothies lately but there are so many delicious fruits in season now.  One thing I've been doing for breakfast is having cut up fruit with greens.  Here is my breakfast from this morning - it's 2 white peaches, 2 black plums over 5 oz of chopped spinach.  Now that's what I call a real fruit salad!

I was having a lot of wanting-to-eat desires, but not actually being hungry.  For lunch I had 2 cups of a pinto bean and basil barley soup over chopped kale, romaine, carrots and broccoli with a handful of frozen blackberries and blueberries for dessert.

Dinner was the rest of a chili I made over the weekend and some leftover mixed vegetables.

6WC: Days 3-5

Whew, that weekend went by fast. I did okay this weekend, exercising all three days, and mostly sticking to ETL foods, but I did participate in some snacking.

Highlight of the weekend: the juiciest, sweetest, most delicious pluots from the farmer's market:

I ate the last 3 I bought tonight after dinner.  I even got the fiance to try a piece of one.

6WC: Day 2

A couple more "tempting" situations today but I'm glad to say I got through them. Hurray!

Tempting situation #1: We finished our morning workout and a bunch of us decided to have breakfast together. I was tasked to help a friend out by ordering his food and picking it up, which I did, without buying anything for myself (except a beverage). This was at a favorite coffee shop of mine. While everyone else was eating their bagel-egg-ham-cheese-bacon-doughnut, I whipped out my container of fruit and nuts. Yes, I am a total dork. Although - two girls did admit that my fruit looked pretty good.

Tempting situation #2: Work potluck day. We have potlucks at work every month and there are about 0.001% healthy choices so lately I've been avoiding them. But today, I wanted to put in my "face time" and I wanted to help one of the guys who was doing a lot of work preparing food for everyone. So I volunteered and helped season all the burgers and helped prep some food (mostly SAD). I admit a lot of it looked good to me, but I also tried to tell myself that that stuff isn't real food.

Decent day overall, even though I did not get to the gym at lunch like I wanted to (too busy). I did swim this morning for an hour though.

Breakfast today was the earlier mentioned fruit and nuts (cantaloupe and blueberries with walnuts). Lunch was more cooked veggies and a big bowl of split pea soup. Dinner was mashed cauliflower and spinach with mushrooms and a lot of organic black plums. Mmmm.

Mashed Cauliflower and Spinach with Mushroom Duxelle

I subscribe to Dr. Fuhrman's mailing list and get sent the daily recipes. I had all of the ingredients to make this one tonight. I love anything cauliflower and this one was pretty good. I'd give it a solid B. It was good (not Wow!) and I might make it again, but it was slightly more time-consuming than I expected since there are a few components to the dish.

I followed the recipe mostly, except I didn't have any wine so I skipped that part. I used a mix of shiitake and oyster mushrooms.

Mashed Cauliflower and Spinach with Mushroom Duxelle
Serves: 4
Preparation Time: 30 min

10 ounces mushrooms
1/4 cup shallots, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme or 1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1/2 cup dry white wine or sherry
6 cups cauliflower florets
4 cloves garlic
10 ounces fresh spinach
1/4 cup raw cashew butter or 1/2 cup raw cashews
soy, hemp or almond milk, if needed to thin
2 tablespoons Dr. Fuhrman's VegiZest, or other no salt seasoning blend, to taste
black pepper, to taste

Finely chop mushrooms in a food processor

Heat 2-3 tablespoons water in a large skillet and water saute shallots for 1 minute.

Add mushrooms and thyme and continue cooking until all mushroom liquid has evaporated.

Add wine and cook for an additional 4 minutes or until evaporated. Set aside.

Steam cauliflower and garlic for 8 to 10 minutes or until tender.

Drain and press out as much water as possible.

Place spinach in steamer, steam until just wilted, drain and set aside.

Process cauliflower, garlic, and cashew butter in a food processor until creamy and smooth. If necessary, add soy milk to adjust consistency.

Add Vegizest, stir in wilted spinach and add black pepper to taste.
Serve topped with Mushroom Duxelle.

6WC: Day 1

Day 1 of the 6-week challenge was relatively easy since my motivation is still high. I had a slight breakdown this morning though. I had forgotten my green smoothie I had planned on drinking for breakfast at home so I needed to get something to eat for breakfast. I was starving after my morning workout and went to a nearby Trader Joe's. Although I was highly tempted to buy junk food (everything looks good when you're hungry!), I stayed the course and bought only what I came for.

Breakfast ended up being a bag of frozen vegetables and a can of garbanzo beans from Trader Joe's. Lunch was some leftover stir-fry (made in an ETL way) over raw romaine and carrots with some sunflower seeds and a fruit for dessert. For dinner, I had a date with the fiance, but we went to a vegan friendly Mexican restaurant where I was able to get steamed vegetables and a whole wheat tortilla with salsa.

The holiday weekend is coming which I am slightly apprehensive about but I know I can do it because I'm committed.

Just what I needed

Barb at Food = Health is starting a challenge for September. The prize is a Vitamix, which I don't need, but this is definitely good motivation for me. We're to send her our goals and post our progress as we go. I'll be posting my progress here and my goal is to eat only ETL foods. I want to get the sugar and refined flour out of my system for good. Veteran ETL'ers say that the longer you stay away from SAD, the better your SAD cravings diminish. I want these cravings gone for good.

The Revival

January 30, eh?  It's been more than 6 months since I updated last!  It's time to get this blog revived and started up again.  To say I've been "busy" would be putting it mildly.  In the last 6+ months, I bought a house and moved into it with my significant other.

And most recently, that significant other became my fiance.

Once the proposal happened, we quickly secured a venue.  We "lucked" out in some ways, because the venue is gorgeous and usually needs to be reserved 1-2 years in advance, but there was an opening and the opening meant the wedding is in January!  That left me about 6 months to plan, which meant I've been a major stress-o-holic for the past month.  I finally feel like I am almost caught up and can breathe a bit easier.

But enough about boring personal details, this is an ETL blog.  I've been doing what I can, but to be honest, I have only been about 60% ETL.  In some ways, moving in with someone has curbed my bingeing.  I can't pig out in front of someone or bring home bags of [insert artery-clogging foods] only to snack on them into the late night.  The downside is that I end up giving in a lot to social situations.  Now we eat out more together (typically SAD) and I am surrounded at home by SAD items he eats.  Of course it is ultimately my responsibility and my choice to eat these things so these aren't excuses.

I know that I really need to be doing ETL closer to 95%, not 60% and I want to get there.  Blogging seems to help me even if no one is listening (hah), so here we go again.