January 15:
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Breakfast: This is getting repetitive, but I had more Cinnamon Toast Crunch and more coffee and more almond milk. You know, the standard.
Lunch: I sliced up a few grape tomatoes and mixed them in with my couscous confetti salad, warmed it up in the microwave for a bit, and put it on top of a cup of arugula. I added some balsamic vinegar on top. It's pretty amazing what arugula can do for a meal. Well, not that amazing. All it really does it add to the volume of food you're eating. I guess it's amazing that it doesn't manage to add anything else.
Snack:White Bean Hummus with Zucchini Strips and Carrot Sticks
I cannot rave enough about this white bean hummus recipe. I am not a fan of zucchini, but I'm trying to use up all of my produce and avoid throwing things away. The hummus makes it bearable. Okay, to be honest, I've realized that raw zucchini pretty much tastes like nothing. But back to the white bean hummus...
Into the Ninja goes: a can of white cannellini beans (drained of their canned bean sludge), a tablespoon of lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of tahini, a gigantic clove of garlic, 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon of Dijon mustard, and some salt. This did not need any water to thin it out, and I forgot that the recipe called for thyme and basil. In all honesty, it's perfect as it is. The recipe makes 6 servings at 105 calories a pop.
Dinner: My reunion with Pita Grill
As I've said before, I used to be obsessed with PG's chicken rice bowls. That combination of feta cheese, chicken, light creamy balsamic dressing, and golden raisins...to die for.
Well, obviously I had to nix the chicken and cheese.
I decided to go for a quinoa salad, which was suspiciously cheap, and when it arrived (within 5 minutes!), the portion size made it understandable (to be fair, it was probably a bigger portion than anything I've been feeding myself). I also ordered "a falafel" (emphasis on the "a") after I made sure it wasn't "fried in an animal or anything." Update: Since PG does not publish nutrition facts, I had to improvise and individually enter the ingredients of the quinoa salad into My Fitness Pal. I also had to guess the amount of each ingredient. However, the next day, I discovered the exact same salad at Whole Foods (is this why my food was ready so quickly, PG?) and it had much less fat and calories than what I input into my food diary.
Additional Snacks: Since Siobhan and I were up north to see Neutral Milk Hotel in concert, and since we both love craft beer, well...despite our diets, it was hard to resist a cold one (or two). We walked down the street from Pita Grill and went to a bar in Hoboken for a Lagunitas Little Sumpin' Ale. For such a delicious, magical beer, it didn't do too much damage. We then remembered that Barcade, arguably one of the best bars in Jersey City, had Carton on tap. How could we say no? According to Twitter, the line to get into the concert was ridiculously long, so we hit up Barcade before the show. Unfortunately, the Carton on tap was Carton of Milk, a milk stout (neither of us are fans). But it's Carton! We ordered anyway. Now, when you try to enter "Carton of Milk" in My Fitness Pal, what do you think comes up? I had to put it in as a Guinness. Oh, and we resisted drinking at the concert. Score!
Exercise (or lack thereof): By the time we made it to the venue, parking was scarce (well, it'a always scarce, to be honest). We had to park in a pretty unsavory part of town and hoof it. And when we hoofed it back after the show, we pretty much ran to the car because we thought there was a good chance we might get stabbed. I mean, in all, we probably traveled on foot 0.6 of a mile. When the car was in sight, I exclaimed with delight, "we probably worked off half of a beer with that trip!" Correction: It was 49 calories. FORTY-NINE! I hate science.
January 16: The Day I Fell off the Wagon...Hard
For a while now, Wednesday has traditionally been "taco night" with my friends Steve, Eric, and Briele. We haven't had a taco night since before Christmas, and we were due. This was a stupid idea. Look what I did:
YEAH, I ate 1,000 more calories than I should have. And I had the balls to add in 24 calories of exercise from stretching at physical therapy. I am kicking my fat self right now. Here's how I slowly fell into the abyss of food...
For a while now, Wednesday has traditionally been "taco night" with my friends Steve, Eric, and Briele. We haven't had a taco night since before Christmas, and we were due. This was a stupid idea. Look what I did:
| Totals | 2,221 | 259 | 97 | 53 | 3,754 | 37 | |
| Your Daily Goal | 1,224 | 153 | 41 | 61 | 2,300 | 46 | |
| Remaining | -997 | -106 | -56 | 8 | -1,454 | 9 | |
| Calories | Carbs | Fat | Protein | Sodium | Sugar | ||
| *You've earned 24 extra calories from exercise today | |||||||
Breakfast: I went for an oatmeal banana bite (those things I made like a year ago) and, lo and behold, one was covered in mold. Those went in the trash and I settled for my standard Cinnamon Toast Crunch fix.
Lunch: Amy's Vegan Enchiladas
I knew I would get home late on Tuesday night and I wouldn't have time to prepare anything for lunch, so I bought one of these frozen entrees at Target. I was a little put off because the tiny container apparently held two servings of enchiladas, but they were still decent, calorie-wise. And very, very good. A nice prelude to taco night, of course.
Snacks: I forgot to bring snacks to work (what am I, four?) but luckily, I always have some hoard stashed somewhere (what am I, a hamster?). Therefore, I enjoyed my leftover carrot sticks and about five measly strawberries.
Dinner: Do we really have to talk about this?
Taco Night is traditionally a night of being a dead-beat fat kid who eats enough to feed a family of four. Before I embarked on my journey South of the Border (Ocean County), I stopped by Whole Foods to stock up on some overpriced fake meat and dairy. I purchased some sort of Mexican-style "meatless crumbles," cheddar Almond cheese, Amy's vegan-and-gluten-free macaroni and cheese, a can of organic refried pinto beans, and an oatmeal cup for about $21. ¡Ándele!
My taco night duty usually consists of making guacamole. My guac is pretty good; I'm not gonna lie. However, the avocadoes Steve purchased were not yet ripe, so we had an interesting time attempting to ripen them in the microwave and failing. We ended up throwing the ingredients (avocadoes so unripe Briele cut through the pit, tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and garlic) into a Vitamix and eating an unripe, chunky guac. Hey, bad guac is better than no guac, and it wasn't that bad. So I had about a pound of that with tortilla chips while I waited for the main course.
We heat up the beans on the stove and the shells in the oven while my soy crumbles warmed up next to the ground turkey (not in the same pan!!!). I grated my brick of almond cheese and then discovered...wait for it...IT'S NOT VEGAN. The almond cheese is made with casein, which is a milk protein. At half the fat and calories of regular cheese, I said ¡Qué pena! and resumed my grating.
When everything was ready, this is how I vegan taco-ed: almond cheese in the shell, then soy crumbles, then beans, then guac. Let me tell you, these were so good that I ate three. On a normal taco night, I usually only indulge in two turkey tacos. The soy crumbles were actually really, really tasty but occasionally, the texture would skeeve me out. Next time we taco (and it's going to have to be far away because I just can't eat like this anymore) I'm going to avoid the fake meat and just eat beans and guac. Or maybe I'll be back to turkey by then.
By the way, now that I am looking at a picture of this taco a day later, it looks gross.
The snacks that come with taco night: ...are not snacks (they are meals). I mean, while cooking, you have to imbibe on a beverage. I like to think that as a female of a miniscule amount of Italian descent, I am supposed to spend time drinking in the kitchen. It's my cultural birthright and I will lay claim to it. Therefore, the first snack of the night was a bottle of Pacifico, which is really not that terrible calorie-wise, either.
After eating three tacos full of spicy, delicious goodness, what do I want? CHOCOLATE. In reality, I've been wanting chocolate for a while. Chocolate is another inalieable right for females. Luckily, our friend AJ had brought over some delicious specialty chocolate around Christmas. One of the bars was 72% dark chocolate and did not list anything anti-vegan in the ingredients. It only said "may contain milk." That was a chance I was willing to take. Did I mention that this was a chili cinnamon and cocoa bean chocolate bar? It was salty and sweet and pretty much the best thing I've ever eaten. So naturally, I ate half of the bar. It was one of those "OMG, get this away from me!" while a piece of chocolate is in my mouth and other one is on its way kind of moments. So yeah, that was smart. But remember, I'm a female and I can use PMS as an excuse for anything, whether it's true or not.
Dinner: Do we really have to talk about this?
Taco Night is traditionally a night of being a dead-beat fat kid who eats enough to feed a family of four. Before I embarked on my journey South of the Border (Ocean County), I stopped by Whole Foods to stock up on some overpriced fake meat and dairy. I purchased some sort of Mexican-style "meatless crumbles," cheddar Almond cheese, Amy's vegan-and-gluten-free macaroni and cheese, a can of organic refried pinto beans, and an oatmeal cup for about $21. ¡Ándele!
My taco night duty usually consists of making guacamole. My guac is pretty good; I'm not gonna lie. However, the avocadoes Steve purchased were not yet ripe, so we had an interesting time attempting to ripen them in the microwave and failing. We ended up throwing the ingredients (avocadoes so unripe Briele cut through the pit, tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and garlic) into a Vitamix and eating an unripe, chunky guac. Hey, bad guac is better than no guac, and it wasn't that bad. So I had about a pound of that with tortilla chips while I waited for the main course.
We heat up the beans on the stove and the shells in the oven while my soy crumbles warmed up next to the ground turkey (not in the same pan!!!). I grated my brick of almond cheese and then discovered...wait for it...IT'S NOT VEGAN. The almond cheese is made with casein, which is a milk protein. At half the fat and calories of regular cheese, I said ¡Qué pena! and resumed my grating. |
| I was too hungry to worry about presentation |
By the way, now that I am looking at a picture of this taco a day later, it looks gross.
The snacks that come with taco night: ...are not snacks (they are meals). I mean, while cooking, you have to imbibe on a beverage. I like to think that as a female of a miniscule amount of Italian descent, I am supposed to spend time drinking in the kitchen. It's my cultural birthright and I will lay claim to it. Therefore, the first snack of the night was a bottle of Pacifico, which is really not that terrible calorie-wise, either.
 |
| Yo bebo cerveza |
After eating three tacos full of spicy, delicious goodness, what do I want? CHOCOLATE. In reality, I've been wanting chocolate for a while. Chocolate is another inalieable right for females. Luckily, our friend AJ had brought over some delicious specialty chocolate around Christmas. One of the bars was 72% dark chocolate and did not list anything anti-vegan in the ingredients. It only said "may contain milk." That was a chance I was willing to take. Did I mention that this was a chili cinnamon and cocoa bean chocolate bar? It was salty and sweet and pretty much the best thing I've ever eaten. So naturally, I ate half of the bar. It was one of those "OMG, get this away from me!" while a piece of chocolate is in my mouth and other one is on its way kind of moments. So yeah, that was smart. But remember, I'm a female and I can use PMS as an excuse for anything, whether it's true or not.
At that point, it was like, #YOLO, if "YOLO" stood for "you're only lard? okay." After all of that chocolate, what was I going to do? Eat (legit vegan daiya) cheese, of course. I think that's my God-given right as an American. Isn't "thou shalt eat cheese" in the Bill of Rights or something? 'MERICA. My Amy's vegan mac and cheese went into the microwave faster than I could mourn my typical Stouffer's. And let me tell you, it. was. miraculous. The noodles are made out of rice, so they get a bit gluey, but this was really fantastic and for 520 calories, it should be.
After all of this, I fell asleep on the couch and woke up hating myself. ¿Cómo se dice there goes all that hard work en español?
Up Next: Starvation!
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