goji berries

With my planned vacation to the Cayman Islands!!! drawing near (I’m leaving on a jet plane Friday AM) my to-do list seems to get longer and longer each day. I’m not complaining though because I’m super excited, in case you couldn’t tell. I haven’t decided if I’m going to blog while away. On one hand I would like to be totally disconnected for a few days, but on the other I want to bring my laptop and share my experience with you guys. I’m not certain there will be wireless where I am staying, so I guess that will be a big factor. Plus, I could always do a re-cap post when I get back. So we shall see. If I’m not here for a few days, don’t fret, I will return – hopefully with a nice tan!

So when not daydreaming of white sandy beaches I did actually get some work done today.

Flash back to before work though. Olive and I were early birds this morning. We woke up around 6:15 and went for a long walk (about 3 miles). I think that is the longest walk she has ever been on. She did great, but was totally pooped afterwards. I was starving and sweaty. After showering I whipped up a cold smoothie. I’m all out of almond milk (or any other milk for that matter) so I just used 1 cup of water. It turned out rather liquified, but still had a ample amount of flavor and it made more. I got 1 pint glass and 1/2 out of this concoction:

The liquified purple smoothie.

1 cup water
1 cup of frozen blueberries
1 banana
1 tablespoon chia seeds
3 pieces of ice
Amazing Grass Chocolate GREEN SuperFood

I also packed a little raw mix for a snack once at work. Navitas Naturals goji berries and raw almonds and cashews.

I love these goji berries- they’re the perfect addition to any nut mixture, alone, or in salad (see my dinner)!

Speaking of salad, I had an awesome one for lunch. I used the left over oven “fried” tofu from Ellwood’s that I had bought for my soba noodle fiasco. Thank heavens, this lunch turned out much better than that little mishap. I used baby romaine, tomato, 1/4 of an avocado, the tofu, and Annie’s Honey Mustard dressing. Quite the salad.

I am offically in love with Ellwood’s tofu. I have to figure out the recipe. I’ve said I was going to figure it out before and didn’t but this time, I ‘m determined.

I brought back some snacks to work with me for the afternoon. One snack was the remaining couple bites of a small container of Oikos plain yogurt that I didn’t finish last night with some fresh black berries.

The other snack was 3 carrots. I ate those AND a mini bag of popcorn. I was a regular snack machine this afternoon, per the usual. I’m always so snacky at work in the afternoon. And I feel a lot of it is just from boredom, rather than actual hunger.

Anyone else with a desk job feel this way? Do you all have any good tips you would like to share for beating afternoon boredom snacking?

After snacking the afternoon away, I wanted something fresh and light for dinner. I made another huge salad, only I didn’t have any tofu left. :/ But I did add some goji berries. The berries were such a nice addition to the salad, I love the texture they added, and of course the flava flav.

So since I’m going to be living in a bathing suit for a few days come Friday I started thinking of ways to make sure I’m looking my best. No I didn’t head straight to the gym and do 5 hours of abs. It’s a little too late for that, but I decided to make sure I’m doing everything in my power to avoid any bloating.

If anyone else is interested, these are the tips I would recommend to beat the bloat:

Drink lots of water
Avoid salty foods (including pre-packed sodium laden ones)
Avoid sugary white flour carbs
Eat plenty of fresh veggies, fruits and fiber
Avoid chewing gum (especially those with artificial sweeteners) -I find that SF gum makes me really bloated
Avoid carbonated drinks – I rarely drink soda, but I do like my carbonated water which isn’t good when trying to stop bloating
Avoid gassy foods (beans, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, etc.)
Avoid alcohol, especially beer
Drink hot herbal teas- my favorite tummy soothers include ginger, peppermint, and Yogi Detox teas
Keep moving – walking, exercising, cleaning, shopping

Hopefully I’ll stick to my guns and have a flat tummy come time to suit up.

If you have any bloat free tips to add, please feel free to do so below!!

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So, I was doing research for a project I have due for my nutrition course and found that the ADA recently released a new position paper on Vegetarianism. This was particularly interesting to me because 1 – I consider myself vegetarian, even though i do currently eat seafood from time to time, so pescatarian would be the politically correct term, and 2 – I’m doing my project on vegetarianism in children.

I know a lot of folks, myself included, aren’t excited about the SAD (Standard American Diet) and could give two hoots about the food pyramid. Especially when you know that the US Department of Agriculture, which is an organization to make sure American farmers prosper, is the organization touting that we must drink / eat 3 servings of dairy a day and eat 3-5 servings of meat. Why? So American farmers get paid, that’s why. I’m going to stop here because I could end up going off on a total rant, so here’s my point.

The July 09 position paper stated,

“It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.”

Can you believe it? The ADA is stating that Vegetarian/Vegan Diets are perfectly acceptable, healthy, and nutritionally adequate for ALL STAGES of the life cycle. The paper even mentions an 100% raw diet and although it suggests there isn’t enough research to prove that a completely raw diet is affective for children, it doesn’t fault it for adults. Gotta love that they’re catching on. If you want to read the full paper, it’s only about 13 pages long, and it’s available on the ADA website.

I know it’s a small step and there are a ton more topics that the US is completely wrong on when it come to nutrition, but hey, it’s a start!

So on to my eats for the day. I went back to my norm for breakfast: chia seed oats with goji berries and better n’ PB.

Oats never fail me. Today’s oats were delicious and filling per the usual and I loved how soft the goji berries got from the moisture of the oatmeal.

I ended up hanging at work over lunch and eating an Amy’s Meal. The Indian Mattar Paneer meal is my absolute favorite Amy’s frozen meal!! It may not look like much, but the taste is on point. I truly love Amy!

I walked home for a quick visit Olive and made some homemade trial mix with raw cashews, cacao power, kashi go lean, and goji berries.

EVEN though I brought my own healthy mix back to work, I was still tempted by the chex mix at the office and it’s NOT even home made. If it weren’t from a stupid bag I wouldn’t be complaining this much about my love/hate relationship with the stuff, but at least I didn’t eat it for my entire lunch as I did yesterday. I’m making progress…. haha. Once that bag is gone I will be a happy camper.

After work ended, I went to the gym for a yoga class. The instructor never showed and after waiting around with the rest of the class for 10 minutes I decided to do my own workout. It’s a good thing I left, I’m pretty sure some people hung out in that room doing nothing for 30 minutes expecting her to show and I found out later that she never arrived.

I did arms, hopped on the treadmill, and then went to an awesome abs 30 minute class. My arms were so sore from the strength training I had a hard time doing the side planks in the class. At first I was like why can’t I stay up for more than a millisecond, then it dawned on me that I had just done about 25 minutes of arm exercises before class. oh yea!

After working it I headed home for dinner, brought to me by Isaac’s parents garden. Zucchini noodles (zoodles) with raw tomato sauce. To make the sauce I threw 2 medium tomatoes, 6 leaves of basil, 1 tablespoon of raw pinenuts, 1 clove of garlic, a small light green pepper, a spoonful of nutritional yeast, ground pepper and sea salt into the Vita and viola- raw pink tomato sauce.

So incredibly easy and quite delicious…. I had seconds!

It’s almost Friday! Woo-hoo, Isaac comes home tomorrow and we’re having a little get together at our place Saturday night. As you can probably tell, I’m excited for the weekend. Anyone have any big plans??