Category Archives: food

Oh hi hi hi

I swear to Jeebus I'm smiling.

So yeah, I don’t do transitions too well. I spent the last several months:

» Being super excited about moving to our new town! Winston-Salem, N.C., is home!!
» Looking for jobs and not getting at ALL excited at the idea of sitting behind a computer.
» Running running running! Up big hills, around beautiful neighborhoods!
» Getting bummed out at not finding work. What’s a girl gotta do?
» Letting my being bummed out bum me out. No more exercise.
» Getting work! At Starbucks. Interesting.
» Getting more work! At an amazing bakery in town (Camino), selling baked goods and learning how to make really good espresso drinks.
» Working two jobs and getting tired. And bummed about being tired. And eating because I’m tired. And still not exercising.
» Ooh! Just one job now! The bakery is such a good place to spend time, behind the counter or as a customer. I love going into work.
» Oh what? I kind of gained even more weight. And also am so-very(-too-too)-slowly getting back into good eating habits and an exercise routine. You know what that makes me? Bummed. Just a little.

So I asked my best friend (hiya, Mela!) what the heck to do, and she talked about how writing her blog and connecting with folks in her area has helped her find her center. You know what? She’s smart.

Time to get back into a routine. Time to get back to writing about it. Because I liked that part. I liked all of you and I liked having a way to stay focused on the things I decided were important to me.

Things I decided were important to me

1. Being fit. Is it being 30 years old? I’m not sure how else to explain that — even with an extra 20 pounds on my frame — I’ve been looking at myself during my weightlifting classes at the gym thinking “damn girl, you’ve got a fine ass,” and “look at those thighs! Tremendous!” So yeah, I’d like to fit back into my jeans, but more and more it’s clear that my underlying motivation for eating right and exercising has to be my overall fitness, not how much I weigh or what size those jeans are. So how to mark my progress? How about a 10K? By this time next week, my goal is to have signed up for an autumn 10K in town.

2. Whole food life. It’s not so much I’ve fallen off this wagon. But last we met, there was still so much I was interested in learning and exploring. I want to take up that adventuresomeness again — new grains, new fruits and vegetables, canning! Goal: To try one new something every week and report on it. It’s also time to learn how to make jams and pickles and put ‘em by. Goals for that to come …

3. Making a happy home. Our house is beautiful, but I struggle to implement the tiny home projects that keep floating through my daydreams. There are walls to be painted, closets to be organized, a bathroom that could use little touch-ups. Goal: By this time next week, unveil a tiny, tiny home project I can plan and implement by the end of April.

3. A handmade wardrobe. I have everything to learn and everything to make. What I might need is a little focus, and my new job at Camino might have offered it: I’d love to wear smock aprons for work — something cute with cap sleeves that I can get get dirty. So a goal! Within two weeks I want to have found a pattern and made my first smock apron. Do you think I could single-handedly bring the smock back into fashion?

Hey …

… This was nice. Let’s do it again. Oh, and Dawgface says hello.

Remember me? I'm here, too!

Day 56 of 101: Seeking nutritional balance

Umm, this all actually looks pretty tasty. (Note: ignore those red numbers. That's just Calorie Count thinking this is a single meal and being like 'Girl, that is WAY too many carbs for one meal.'

So, step one in my effort to get better nutrified: I researched foods high in fiber, potassium, and calcium (the three nutrients that I keep under-consuming); noted the ones I’m most likely to keep on hand; then created this fake day in Calorie Count to see how to put all the pieces together and make it work.

You can click on the image above to see it in better detail. The short of it is: if I eat beans, whole grains, minimal dairy, greens, and fish, I’ll be in good shape. Throw in an egg, potatoes, and a banana and I’m full-up on good stuff.

I can easily see working each of these foods into my diet, but I don’t foresee having this exact mix every day. And this was just a preliminary hunt. How many more foods are out there packed with good-for-me things? I don’t know, but I plan to find as many of them as I can.

Foods that surprised me

Soybeans. They’re crazy. Three ounces (about 1/3 cup) contain 11 grams of protein, 3.6 grams of fiber, 168 milligrams of calcium (1,000 mg is the daily target), and 527 milligrams of potassium (with a 5,000 mg target). Also, I think they’re tasty.

Avocado. About 1/4 avocado (2 ounces) has 3.8 grams of fiber! What?! Where is the fiber? I don’t taste fibers.

Sweet potatoes (yams). About a half-potato contains more than 1,000 milligrams of potassium. Now if only I fully understood why potassium is so essential …

Greek yogurt. In six little ounces is much calcium (225 milligrams), so much protein (18 grams), so few calories (100).

Really, when each of these foods is inspected nutritionally, they’re little powerhouses, and so diverse! Even without my multivitamin (which I eventually listed to help boost my daily calcium intake), I was meeting all the vitamin targets through the foods alone.

It makes me think of what bounty we have all around us, and how much of it I still know so little about.

Mixing it up

Even though I don’t plan to eat each of these foods every day, it’s fun to think of ways to mix and match them into meals …

Veggie and grains. Roasted sweet potatoes and kale chips, served alongside a mound of quinoa and soybeans.

Soup and salad. This avocado edamame (soybean) salad from Joy the Baker, and lentil soup topped with greek yogurt (in place of sour cream).

Breakfast for dinner. Spinach and toasted kale salad, sprinkled with avocado and goat cheese, and topped with a fried egg.

Jacket potato. Baked sweet potato served with a dollop of greek yogurt and a simple tuna salad.

Breakfast or dessert. Greek yogurt over sliced bananas, sprinkled with raw oats, honey, and spices.

… And this is just scratching the surface of nutritious eating! I’ll plan an update in a week or two on how these foods are finding they way to my plate.

Day 17 of 101: Making coffee when there’s no other way

Patrick and I enjoy delicious home-brewed coffee every morning. And then I enjoy a second cup in the afternoon.

I know. Lucky girl.

Our regular method is Chemex (which requires special filters that we order from Amazon). It’s tasty, it looks pretty, it feels special. I firmly believe that elevating even simple foods is a path to a healthier way of life — the more time and thought that I put into my meal, the more thought I put into consuming it.

Employing paper towels

And then we go and run out of filters. I wasn’t going to give up my afternoon coffee, so I improvised.

I share because maybe you’ll find yourself with a busted coffee pot or cracked french press, and in dire need of your cup.

My ratio, by weight, has long been 1 oz. of coffee to 1 lb. of water. For this brew, I used 3/4 oz. beans for 3/4 lbs. water (12 oz. water, or 1 1/2 cups).

Water in the magic machine.

1 1/2 cups water in a 2-cup pyrex, heated in the microwave until it boils (three minutes in my microwave). Once it’s done, let the bubbles settle out of it (perfect brew temperature is apparently about 200F, so measure it if you wish).

The aroma is delicious.

Add your grounds (look at those bubbles! I think it has to do something with the carbon dioxide in the coffee beans being released). Stir immediately.

Pre-stir.

Post-stir.

Let it sit for about four minutes (this is how much time we’ve used for our french press brews, so I borrowed it for this makeshift brew).

I'm a genius, right?

And this would be my makeshift filter: a couple of paper towels folded and set in a small sieve, nested over my coffee cup. The flavor of the final cup doesn’t match the Chemex-brewed coffee, and I have a feeling it’s because those paper towels lend some paperiness as the hot water passes through them. A folded cheese cloth might do better.

Separating the wheat from the chaff. Or something.

Pour.

A clean cup.

And if you’re me, add cream. Heavy. Whipping. Cream.

cream goes in

Scratchmade: Simple ganache

Homemade "chocolate sauce" ... really a warm ganache.

unprocessed october This is so simple it’s almost a shame to post. But it’s also such an easy secret to share that it would be a shame not to post it.

Ganache is just heated cream poured over chopped chocolate.

No added sugar. Takes about five minutes start to finish. And you can make just as much as you need in the moment, or make a bigger batch and keep it in the fridge.

2 oz. each (by weight) of chocolate and cream.

By weight, I used equal parts chocolate and cream for the sauce-y consistency above.

chopped chocolate

I could have stood to make a finer chop on some of those big chunks; I ended up with small globs of chocolate in my final sauce.

And it gets simpler: I heated the cream in the microwave. Microwave! Just keep an eye out, and maybe use a bigger container than I’d used — it bubbled over.

It's melting ... it's melting!

In any case, next step is to pour the cream over the chocolate and just let it sit for a few minutes (allowing the cream to heat and melt the chocolate).

Don't panic.

If it goes a little gritty as you stir, no bother. Just keep stirring.

Ready to be sawce.

And there you have ganache. And while it’s still warm and fluid, chocolate sauce.

I made more than I needed; I covered the leftovers with plastic wrap (so that it came in direct contact with the sauce to block all air) and put it in the fridge, where it solidifies a little. To bring it back to sauce consistency, I can zap it in the microwave for a few seconds and stir.

For a thicker (more truffly) mix, use two parts of chocolate to one part cream. Add spices! Add extracts or tasty liquors!

Day 12 of 101: The weekend (& hummus recipe)

Patrick jumps an obstacle during his Mud, Sweat and Gears cyclocross race.

It was full. Patrick rode in his first cyclocross races in two years; we celebrated his hard work with foodstuffs and his homebrewed beer, shared with his family at the elder Beesons’ home in Tennessee; …

Just before his first race of the weekend. Isn't he nice-lookin'?

… we got home Sunday and immediately got to grocery shopping, a colorful sunset (admired by the dawgface, see below), and homemade hummus and flat bread for dinner.

{More weekend photos}

Our favorite hummus recipe

Cook’s Illustrated is our go-to source for new recipes. I like the detailed backstory for each of their recipes and the explanations of their final ingredient/method choices. In any case, it’s in the June 2008 magazine that we found this hummus, which is my favorite to this day. We ate it Sunday night with Smitten Kitchen’s Crispy Rosemary Flatbread.

Flatbread, hummus and fresh zucchini. It was the perfect end to our weekend.

Ingredients

3 Tbsp. juice from 1 to 2 lemons
1/4 cup water
6 Tbsp. (111 grams) tahini
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed*
1 small garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp. table salt
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
Pinch cayenne
1 Tbsp. minced fresh cilantro or parsley leaves (optional)

Method

1. Combine the lemon juice and water in a small bowl.

2. Whisk together the tahini and olive oil.

3. In a food processor, grind together the chickpeas, garlic, salt, cumin and cayenne until mealy (about 15 seconds). Scrape down the bowl with a spatula.

4. With the machine running, add the lemon juice and water through the feed tube. Scrape down the bowl and run the machine again for about 1 minute.

5. With the machine running, slowly add the tahini and oil and continue to process until the hummus is smooth and creamy.

6. Garnish with cilantro/parsley and a bit of olive oil.

* I find the hummus comes out extra smooth if I take time to rub the skins off the chickpeas and discard them as I’m rinsing. Whatever it is about those skins, they can make the final hummus a little pasty (sounds worse than it is). Not bad, just not quite how I like it.

PS: Dawg admires sunset

(Actually, she was snooping on another dog taking a poop on the sidelawn.)

Day 5 of 101: Apple-picking

We might have snacked on apples.

Yes. Yes we are this adorable in real life. We do things like go apple-picking in orchards.

Patrick spotted a Groupon for Johnson’s Orchards in Bedford (a peck of apples for $5!), and we headed out to collect our take yesterday.

You’ll have to excuse me for being late with this Day 5 post, but I was too busy making a free-form apple pie, and trying my hand at apple butter. It turned out purty and tasty. It looks something like this:

Patrick helped me chop more than five pounds of apples. I put them in the crock pot, added spices, and waited. In the meantime, the concoction filled the apartment with a really pleasant aroma of autumn.

I used the All Day Apple Butter recipe from allrecipes.com, with these notes:

1. The recipe calls for 4 cups of white sugar. I used 2 cups white, 1 cup brown. I might even pull back on the sugar next time (and there will be a next time).

2. I maxed out the time, cooking on low for eleven hours, then the additional one hour uncovered.

3. I transfered the finished mash (still chunky with apple) to our food processor and blended until it was smooth.

4. The recipe says the yield is 4 pints; I got three. That might be because of my longer cooking time and less sugar.

More pictures

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day (you can see the whole slideshow, too).

Pickin' family

Warning: If you a dumb turd, you might die. We will not be held responsible if you are a dumb turd.

Johnson's Orchard

Johnny Appleseed, of course

Pick a peck.

Day 2 of 101: Making almond butter

Check out my food board on Pinterest to see just some of the recipes I bookmark.

Recipe 1 of 50: Maple Cinnamon Almond Butter with Hemp, Flax and Chia Seeds (from Oh She Glows) One of my 101 Days challenges to myself is to actually try out some of the hundreds of recipes that I bookmark. To give that challenge some focus, I set my goal at 50 recipes. Here’s the first!

Next-level nut butter

(It’s impossible to call it “nut butter” without it sounding Miss-Jackson-If-You’re-Nasty, am I right?)

Patrick and I have been making our own peanut butter since we discovered it’s as simple as grinding dry roasted peanuts in the food processor until they turn butter-ish. (If you try this yourself for the first time, keep the faith: That rotating mound of semi-dry-looking peanut mash will eventually pseudo-liquify into peanut butter. But not after the peanuts and food processor duke it out in a loud, vicious battle).

As my food-blog-following has evolved, I’m increasingly drawn to recipes that maximize taste and healthfulness. So when I saw Angela of Oh She Glows concoct an almond butter that included flax seeds and the like, I didn’t waste a second bookmarking it.

Six months ago.

The two cups of almonds plus additional ingredients rendered about 1 1/2 cups of almond butter.

The recipe’s been sitting in my inspiration bin long enough. And because we’re almost out of peanut butter and have most of the ingredients handy, this was the first recipe I chose to launch my 50-recipe challenge.

And it was simple as can be.

What we didn’t have on hand (and what I couldn’t find during cursory search at a couple of grocery stores) was the hemp or chia seeds. The flax? I have it ground, not whole.

After a shoulder shrug, I tossed the ingredients together, baked as directed, and processed until I had almond butter.

Maple and flax mixed in with the almonds just before being put in the oven (30 minutes at 300 degrees, mixing halfway through).

My only oversight: I let the roasted almonds cool too long before I tossed them into the food processor, thus losing the advantage of the almond oil being hot and speeding the nut-to-butter time.

A note about that: The directions call for grinding the almonds for about ten minutes, end of story; because my almonds were too cool it took longer. To avoid my machine overheating, I stopped it at about ten minutes (and it was hot as hell, so good thing) and let it rest a bit before restarting it. I ran the processor about five more minutes, let it cool again, and then ran it one last time and added the final ingredients. Next time, I’ll just do it up right the first time, but if anyone else makes the same mistake I did …

I’ll keep a lookout for hemp and chia seeds (maybe at our Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op?), but I’m supremely happy with this first attempt.

My first almond-butter snack? I sliced up a banana, put a dollop of the butter on top and poured just a tiny bit of honey over the whole thing. It was nearly a dessert.

PS

If we're in the kitchen, we're audience to a beggin' dawg, who seems to think we'll feed her scraps (though we rarely have).

recipe: spent-grain bread (finally!)

We’ve been making this bread for a month now, and I can safely say it’s the best bread we’ve made. Also? It makes me want to explore more breads (like, “if we can do this, just think what else we might be able to bake!”)

We were lucky to come across a reliable recipe (with great notes) on our first try. It’s “Great Bread from Spent Grains” on Brew Your Own.

If you want volume measurements and basic directions/notes for the recipe, see the original. I’ve converted the volume measurements to weight for our use at home because I find that makes it easier to prep batches. I also like how using weight measurements for everything exposes the ratio behind the recipe … SCIENCE.

And the notes I’ve included are just little tidbits of information based on our experience with the bread.

Don’t have access to spent grains? The original recipe is built on a simple “pain ordinaire,” the directions for which are listed out in great detail.

how we make spent-grain ‘pain ordinaire’

ingredients (by weight)

14. g. yeast (we use Fleismanns’ rapid rise)
16 oz. water
7 oz. fresh spent grains (wet)
1 lb. 14 oz. flour
18 g. salt

photos & notes {see the gallery on flickr}

I have many bread-making friends, so if any of you see something that I could improve, please share!

spent grains
Reserved after the mash, this is the liquid/grain balance that seems to work best so far. We’ve also used grains that have been drained of as much liquid as possible (no liquid even seemed collected at the bottom of the container we had them in), but the bread baked up more … cakey? The crumb wasn’t as chewy, nor as hole-y.

yeast & water
When Patrick took up the bread-making duties, he started using much warmer water than I had been using, and with good results. With his experience with beer-making (and its reliance on well-tended yeast), he thought the warmer temperatures would bring the yeast to life. He seems to have been right, as our doughs rise more nicely, now.

post-mix, pre-hand-knead
The recipe calls for adding most of the bread flour during its initial mix, and kneading in the remaining flour to achieve the desired effect. (On our good bread days, we end up with a soft-to-the-touch, firm, satiny ball.) Here, the dough has just come out of the mixer and we’ll generously flour our hands and that mound of dough in addition to what we sprinkled on the counter.

post-knead, pre-rise
Satiny, soft and firm. Rounded!

risen!
This dough’s been in the bucket for an hour and a half, covered in a damp rag and near our oven/stove, which had recently been used to make lunch (we usually time the rise with a recently heated oven, to help slightly increase the ambient temperature in our cool-ish apartment). We’ll “punch it down” for its secondary rise (about 45 minutes).

dough, dumped
You can maybe tell just how delicate and soft this dough has become in its first and second rise. We’re about to divide it for another rise …

dough, divided
We’ll drape the dough with the same damp rag we used to blanket the rising container. Then it’s time to let the dough rest for 15 minutes.

shaped, pre-risen
We’ll drape this dough *again* with the damp rag, and set it aside for its final rise (about 45 minutes). In the meantime, we preheat our oven to 425F. We allow it — and a baking stone we keep on the middle rack in the oven — to heat for the full 45-minute rise. ALSO: On the bottom rack of the oven is a baking sheet that we’ll dump ice cubes onto as soon as we set the loaves to bake … steam trick!

A photo I didn’t get: After the rise, just before we set the pan on the baking stone, we score these loaves with a quarter-inch-deep “X.”

temperature, achieved
The loaves bake between 30 and 40 minutes, but we use a thermometer to decide when to pull them out of the oven. As soon as the middle of the larger loaf (invariably, one of the loaves ends up bigger than the other) reaches 200F, we pull the bread from the oven.

pulled loaves
Aren’t they beautiful?

thumping for doneness
A secondary test we do: the thump. Here, Patrick taps the bottom of a loaf, looking for a “hollow” sound.

golden delicious
We set the loaves to cool for a minimum of ten minutes, which is a truly difficult wait (and minimal; I have a feeling a longer cooling time would be even better to allow the moisture in the loaves to disperse properly as they lose heat).

crust & crumb
I’m a newbie, but I think those holes are a good sign. I’d love if the crust were shattering, but that’s an achievement of experience and we have very little of that.

bread & butter
Best way to enjoy it, if you ask me.

next up …

We’ve made beer ice cream using homemade syrup (and that was made using mash liquid, pulled at the same time as these spent grains). I’ll get to that in the next couple of weeks.

Excited?! …

using charts & spreadsheets to track my health

Who doesn’t know I love spreadsheets? NOBODY. That’s who.

I’ve long created, used, abandoned and recreated Google spreadsheets to track my activity and food intake, but I’ve only recently (finally!) understood how to use Google’s charting options to visualize the data. Which inspired me to go beyond the simple calories-in/calories-out tracking and start exploring my: heart rate, water intake, weight change and muscle/bone/fat/water percentages that I can borrow from our Homedics bathroom scale.

So how’s about I just dive in and show you what I see everyday?

the charts

For the most part the charts I’ve included below display one week’s worth of data (for the span between Feb. 28 and March 6).

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the mothership

Here are the raw numbers, which I fill in every day. I have some ideas for more data to add (a count of visits to the gym per week, separate tracking for bike rides, inch measurements to accompany my weight numbers, etc.), but for now this is giving me a lot of great analysis. A note: You’ll notice I leave the heart rate/speed numbers blank on days I don’t exercise, but I take the time to mark “0″ calories on those days. When you see the visualization of those numbers later on I think you’ll see why.

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daily water intake

Water! Simple and straightforward. I’m still trying to figure out the best volume of water to keep me properly hydrated every day. I’ve set a goal of 81 oz. for now (my Klean Kanteen is a 27 oz. bottle and to keep things simple, I aim to drink three of those a day, which brings me to 81 oz.).

I still feel thirsty, and wake up thirsty, so I don’t know if I’m overdoing it, need more water, or need to examine something else in my diet. If I come to find that I need to increase or decrease my daily water goal, I’ll adjust my chart accordingly.

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weekly points consumed

I already track my Weight Watchers points through my weightwatchers.com login, but I thought I may find some benefit one day (for some reason I have yet to determine) of having these numbers readily available in my charts.

Maybe one day I’ll get curious about how my weekly activity performance compares with my overall food intake through that week? Or if my heart rate during exercise seems to spike on days I’ve consumed more points (or fewer)?

I really don’t know yet, but the numbers are there to be crunched …

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daily & weekly calories burned

I use this chart to keep an eye on my weekly goal for exertion: I’d love to burn 2,000 calories each week. You can see that in the week displayed here, I fell short of that goal.

(And regarding that “0″ calories burned I mark on days I don’t go to the gym: You can see how that “0″ displays on my chart.)

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heart rate zones per workout

I need to further educate myself on what different heart rate zones mean for fitness, but some preliminary reading suggests that if I keep my heart rate in a lower (though elevated) range, I’ll be in my “fat-burning” zone.

And that the further I push that heart rate the more it will push my body beyond that benefit and into … I’m not sure. That’s where I need to read more so I can understand what the higher exertion does for fitness training.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to keep my heart rate in the first (teal) and second (green) heart rate zones (as determined by my smart heart rate monitor). And that pinky red you see in my earlier workouts? It’s me nearly maxing out my heart rate before I started reading about healthy zones and how to approach aerobic training …

(And regarding those nil data sets for days I don’t work out: For this chart and the next, it would be funky to see “0″ for my heart rate those days. I think it’s more useful to mark progress from one workout day to the next, whenever it may fall.)

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overall heart rate & speed

And here’s a big-picture look at my heart rate.

As far as I understand, heart rate is a good measure of overall health. What I do with this chart is keep an eye on my maximum and average heart rates for each workout, as well as the average speed for those workouts.

My thought? That putting those two numbers together will help build a more complete picture of wellness: If my heart rate goes down over time and my average speed goes up, then I’m getting in good shape.

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weight tracking

I had to do a little trickery here, as Google’s charting seems to have a glitch: I can’t set my X-axis to a number higher than “0.”

Why do I want to adjust my X-axis? Because the narrower the range of numbers displayed, the greater the difference appears when I go up or down a pound.

What I discovered: I *can* set my X-axis at a number lower than “0.” (Silly Google.)

So I’ve set the chart range to display between -130 lbs. and -114 lbs.

Which is a long way to explain why you see the line designating my goal weight (115 lbs.) hovering above my daily weigh-in line (which creeps *up* as I lose weight).

*Phew* Did you get all that?

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bathroom scale numbers

The number I’m most interested in here is my body fat percentage, which I would love to get down to 18 percent one day (which would mean me basically being an athlete and shifting my activity into high gear). Right now it’s hovering around 28 percent.

I’d like to read up on healthy percentages for these other numbers. Right now, I’m around 52 percent water, 36 percent muscle mass and 3.5 percent bone mass.

A note about this chart: imagine that the walls of color you see are stacked one behind the other, rather than on top of one another. Which is why that little strip for muscle mass looks so tiny (36 percent), even though it’s greater than the body fat (at 28 percent).

what does it all mean?

I’m trying to look at these numbers more in the spirit of scientific observation than fire-under-my-ass motivation.

I know I’m making good, healthy decisions. I know that my weight and various body percentage numbers will slowly approach a healthier range. I know my heart rate will slowly decrease as I get more fit.

But isn’t it interesting to watch those things happen quantitatively? And couldn’t these numbers be helpful to observe hiccups or to help me get in front of bad habits rearing their ugly heads?

I think so.

And I hope you think so, too. Because I plan to produce weekly updates using these charts. Maybe some monthly updates to analyze bigger shifts. And wouldn’t it be great to see where these charts rest in one year?(!)

missing something … protein?

I’m digging into this right now. I microwaved it for a minute and sprinkled it with sea salt. This modest portion of edamame (3 oz. / 0.5 cups) contains 12 g of protein.

Do you know why I care about how much protein this has?

Because I have been SLUGGISH lately. And today I hit my breaking point. (Come to think of it, about this time last week I met a similar breaking point …) I found myself super drained, unable to focus, hungry, grumpy. And I mean this was on an “am I getting sick??” level.

No good reason! I had my morning exercise, my delicious oatmeal/fruit/honey/almond milk breakfast. I had my 12 oz. of coffee.

WHY THE HELL?

It was incredibly frustrating. And I continued to feel unwell after my (healthy!) lunch of homemade grain bread, hummus, veggies, granola bar.

On top of all this, I have this nagging feeling that my late-afternoon sleepies (which I experience nearly every day) are entirely avoidable …

So I wanted to get to the bottom of it.

So I dug into the numbers behind my entire food intake for yesterday and found I’d consumed around 30 grams of protein.

*Ahem* That is not enough. (And this is where I really want to start reading serious, trustworthy, educational materials about nutrition and such, because all I can say is that) I’ve seen several references to recommendations from the Institute of Medicine that folks get about 0.8 grams of protein for every kilogram of body weight.

That would put me at 45 grams per day if I weren’t active. (125 lbs. divided by 2.2 to get my weight in kilograms, by the way.) But when I add activity I should add protein, too.

This article on Health.com [ehh?] suggests that if I’m active, I should take my weight in pounds and multiply it by 0.6 to calculate my grams of protein per day. That brings me up to 75.

If that number seems a little steep, at least it suggests a range to guide me. And 30 does *not* fall between 45 and 75 grams of protein.

taking-action time

I’m going to forgo the gym tomorrow (seriously, I’m still quite tired), which kinda bums me out because I was looking forward to my second Body Pump class (have I mentioned that yet? I suppose not … I went on Tuesday, I used the absolute smallest amount of weight possible and I *still* found myself struggling at times. It was great, of course).

I will eat a bean and egg breakfast (overkill?).

And I think it’s about time for me to bone up on protein-rich veggies, beans, etc. (I eat meat. I will not shun it. [Ever?] But I’m happy to eat it in moderation and I want to get most of my protein from non-meat sources.)

I asked for advice from muh Facebook friends, and folks suggested (list!):

» edamame (see above)
» cottage cheese (I love it! But I must use moderation here, too, because cheese is one of my over-eater foods)
» hemp seed powder (what the what?! I can’t wait to find out what this is like)
» quinoa
» tofu
» tempeh
» seitan
» nuts
» avocado
» kashi cereals (which I totally wanna learn how to scratchmake)

It’s a great list. I want it to grow. And now I’m wondering what other food groups, vitamins, minerals, fats, etc. I could work into my diet to bring a better balance to meals.

For now, though, focusing on protein seems like the plan …