Author: heather

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness

Primal Day 2

heather

As promised, I will not bore you with pictures and extensive details of everything I ate today.  Here are the quick highlights.

  • I didn’t weigh myself this morning.  See,  I didn’t take a shower this morning, and I only weigh myself before I’ve eaten anything and when I’m nekked.  I don’t want clothing to tip the scales at all.  So, no shower, no weigh-in.
  • For breakfast I ate a super delicious omelet of sautéed (in coconut oil) leeks, spinach, and onions, with 1/4 an avocado.  For those of you who think I mis-spelled “omelet” I direct you to Wikipedia, which says you can spell it “omelet” OR “omelette.”  Tim and I just had a 5 minute discussion about it.  But, I’m off topic.  After breakfast I felt, to borrow a phrase from my brother, Nate, “amazing.”  I had a ton of energy and felt as if I could take on the world.  The sky was prettier, Lucent was cuter, the air was sweeter.  You know – all sorts of good stuff.  My general mood and feeling of well-being could have been enhanced by my visit to my chiropractor last night, admittedly.  She uses the Lifeline Technique, which to quote her website is, “An amazing tool that taps into our subconscious mind to find the causes behind symptoms and unlocks the mysteries to your health’s unanswered questions.”  It sounds a little far out, but it really works for me.  It’s good for what ails ya.  Or me, at least.  OK, back to primal.
  • Lunch was complicated today.  I attended a Chamber luncheon function, which fortunately consisted of salad and then the fixings for sandwiches. I got some salad and a couple slices of roast beef, a pickle, and a tomato slice.  As we were already the first ones in line, I didn’t want to look ultra-greedy, so I took a very modest amount.  It did not fill me up.  So I was snacky this afternoon, but I only ate pumpkin seeds and macademia nuts.
  • That late afternoon snack really energized me.  I took advantage of our 50+ degree weather and went for a walk after work.  I intended to just walk, but once I hit the bike path, I was all like, “Hey, let’s jog.  Why not?”  And I ended up running for 2 miles!  Albeit at a very slow pace.  But, I haven’t jogged since, I don’t know, early November, maybe?  I felt as if I could have gone another mile, but at 5:15, the darkness was already settling in, so I headed home. It was so beautiful being out at that time, though, as dusk was settling in, the sky turning orange and coral and mauve.  So beautiful and peaceful.  Almost peaceful enough to forget that the atomic clock got moved forward a minute.  Sad face.
  • As I mentioned yesterday, I forgot to take meat out of the freezer in time, so we didn’t really have a good entree.  Tim ended up making a monster salad, and I sautéed spinach, celery, leeks, onions and broccoli in coconut oil, and then tried my hand at another omelette (I spelled it the other way, just for you).  It seems like such an easy thing to make, but it was giving me fits.  The eggs got cooked eventually, but it wasn’t pretty.    It was an OK omelet, not as good as this morning’s though.  Maybe too many ingredients?  Too busy?  The broccoli had no place in that omelette, really.   Seems so obvious now.
  • For an after-dinner dessert, I had a small square of a Green & Black Organic 85% dark chocolate bar.  Yes, the bar cost almost $4, which the clerk at HyVee was gracious enough to point out when we commented on ample size of our bill.

And that brings us to right now.  I am drinking tea and writing in my blog.  Oh, we watched an episode of Lost too.  What in the heck is going on in that show?!

Mark Sisson recommends adjusting your schedule to the sun’s natural rythms – wake up when the sun comes out and go to bed, or at least wind down (no digital stimulation) after dark – use candles if possible or yellow bug lights or dimmer switches.  It’s obvious he lives in California, because if I tried that in Iowa, I would be getting up at 7:28AM and going to bed at 4:51PM (thank you to Tim for the exact sunrise & sunset times).  That’s not really feasible to me.  I may try the yellow lights in our lamps and see how that goes.

So, Day 2 is behind me.  Only 19 more to go!  One of my friends at work has promised to bring me in some deer meat, so you get to look forward to my review of that.  Bet you can’t wait.

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness

Primal Day 1

heather

I started out the day in a depressing fashion, by taking my weights and measures.  Ugh.  My weekend of debauchery (aka eating pizza and pasta and drinking beer) definitely took its toll.  I weighed in this morning at 149.3, which is higher than I have been in at least a year.  I’m hoping it was mostly water weight, and I’ll be back down to 147ish, which is where I’ve been hovering lately.  And for the measures – 36-31-43.  Sigh.  I have my work cut out for me!

Breakfast!  I sauteed cabbage & Swiss chard in coconut oil, fried 2 eggs over-easy, and added some avocado.

Lunch!  I made a delicious salad of organic herbs and greens, with green peppers, avocado, walnuts, sardines, olive oil and apple cider vinegar.

For supper I made what was essentially a taco salad.  I cooked up a pound of grass-fed meat, adding home-made taco seasoning and used it to top off a salad of romaine hearts, green peppers, onions, tomatoes, and avocado.  I have to say, it was not my favorite meal.  I think I broke up the hamburger into pieces that were too small – kinda got lost in the shuffle.

So, the day in retrospect – My stomach felt good.  My energy was good all day.  I didn’t get hungry between meals really.  After lunch I got snacky, but that was more psychological than pysiological.  I ate some pumpkin seeds, and they were delicious.  In my limited experience eating primally off and on over the past month or so, adding good fat to a meal really does make it last longer.  I used to always eat oatmeal mixed with raisins and cinnamon for breakfast, and I was always hungry by 8:30AM.  For exercise, Marta and I took two walks around the bank, and I took a walk around the block over lunch.  I am wicked sore from doing planks & squats yesterday.  Ouch.

I think it’s going to be a struggle to plan ahead and to have the right groceries in stock.  Already, after Day 1, I’m a little screwed.  I didn’t take anything out of the freezer yesterday, so I’ll probably need to go to the store for some meat tomorrow.  Also, I wanted to make cabbage pesto slaw.  I got half the ingredients, but the recipe called for 4 cups of basil, which would cost like $12 at HyVee.  So I have cabbage but no pesto.  Have to figure that out.

I’m sure this will get easier eventually.  Hopefully.  As for tracking the progress on the blog daily, I’m going to have to reconsider that – at least reconsider the level of detail.  I’m already bored just writing about 3 meals.  No one is going to want to read that everyday.  So, going forward, I’ll just hit the highlights.

Day 1 down, 20 to go!

Health & Fitness

Primal!

heather

Starting Monday I am doing the 21-Day Primal Challenge.  Basically that means no grains, legumes,  peas, corn, or beer.  I’ll be eating mostly grass-fed meat and organic veggies, with some nuts, seeds, and fruits to fill out the day.  I’ll be doing pull-ups, planks, squats, and push-ups plus non-chronic cardio.  For 21 days.

Why am I doing this?  My health is good, by all standard measurements.  But I’m scared by the random arthritic twinges, the size 10 jeans that are starting to feel a little snug, the constant allergic reactions to *something* every evening and morning. I’m hoping that by eating a diet of chemical-free veggies and meat, I’ll be able to overcome some of the maladies I feel onsetting me and stave off others by which I have yet to be afflicted.

I figured I can try this for 21 days, and if I don’t feel better, I can go back to my old ways, no harm, no foul.  But, if I do feel better, healthier, more vibrant, more energetic, then thank God.  And if my pants fit better as well, so be it.  Man, do I ever hate tight pants.

So my blog is going to become a record of this challenge for the next 21 days. I expect to post pictures of my delicious, primal meals, along with a quick synopsis of my overall health/wellness for the day.  Admittedly, this may be boring to many readers, and for that I apologize. However, being a weak, easily-distracted girl of almost 35, I need the added  inducement of being held accountable for my resolutions by the 6-10 people who read this blog.  So, thank you, and I’m sorry.

If you think that I am taking advantage of this weekend before the new eating plan starts to drink beer, eat pizza, and to otherwise enjoy all sorts of unhealthy behavior, you would be entirely correct.

Take care, and I’ll see you tomorrow when I plan to post pre-primal stats.  Hopefully in 3 weeks, I will be healthier, happier, more focused, and more energetic.

If you are interested in the primal “movement” and what it all means, check out these sites:

www.marksdailyapple.com

http://www.uiowa.edu/be-remarkable/portfolio/people/wahls-t.html

Uncategorized

4.5 Day Weekend

heather

Ah, weekends.  Long weekends.  They are the best.  I took off last Thursday at 11:30 and didn’t return until this morning.  We toyed with the idea of going somewhere and doing something with the extended time off, but we ended up staying pretty close to home and just chilling.

We went to Iowa City on Friday, ate some deeeeeelicious falafel from Oasis Falafel, got a couple of pints at Deadwood, looked at Dick Blick wistfully, as is my wont, and then came home.

We ate, we drank, I beat the pants off Tim at Scrabble. We made good food – good kimchi, good cookies, tasty pork roast, etc.  We watched some movies, slept in until 7 or 8 each day, went to the gym a few times.  Just enjoyed the time off and eachother, basically.

It’s so rare to be able to just spend time at home.  I always feel like we should be out DOING something.  Going somewhere, meeting people, making an effort.  Sometimes it’s just nice to veg out for a few days and enjoy our little house and our little dog.

When I came home for lunch today, I realized that I was a little homesick already.  Tim and I are already pretty dedicated homebodies, which is something we need to keep an eye on, but for 4.5 days, it was nice to just give in and be cozy.

Books

The Hunger Games

heather

On the recommendation of a countless number of people, I read The Hunger Games.  I just finished it up on Sunday, and I’m still trying to figure out what I think of it.  Please note – spoilers will follow, so don’t read this if you want the entire book to be a surprise.

The book reminded me of Harry Potter and Twilight, in that it’s a quick, engrossing read.  You don’t want to put the book down until you find out what happens.  The language is easy to follow and fairly simplistic.  The concepts are more complicated however, as the book is about a gruesome fight-to-the-death and 1984-like government oppression.  It’s very gruesome, in point of fact.  One of the participants in the “Hunger Games” gets attacked and eaten by a pack of wild dogs that are really resurrected former Games players.  Dark.

The true thread of the story though, is the story of Katniss, the girl hunter who wows the crowd and makes everyone fall in love with her, including the fellow tribute from her home district, District 12.  This boy, Peeta, has been in love with Katniss since the age of 5, a fact that the organizers of the games choose to exploit for viewership and interest.

Despite the history and actions of Peeta over the course of the 10 years they’ve known each other, Katniss prefers to assume that he is just “acting” in order to win the games.  I can’t believe that a 16-year-old girl would be that dense.  She is conflicted by another sort of love interest, her hunting partner, Gale.  They never were anything but friends, but the faux romance with Peeta (for the benefit of the games) makes her contemplate her relationship with  Gale.

A movie is being made of the book.  I read a review/preview, and the writer was lamenting that it seems as if the love triangle (ala Team Jacob/Team Edward) was going to play center stage.  In my mind, however, that IS center stage.  The relationship between Peeta & Katniss is the main motivating force of the story.  Without that, it’s just a death match.

Which brings me to my point, that this is really a love story, which is not what I thought it was going to be.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  I love a good love story.  But, this one annoyed me.

Katniss is so mean to Peeta.  She is cold, and he is sweet and caring and self-sacrificing.  Sure, Katniss puts herself on the line to save Peeta, but it seems as if the ONLY reason she is doing it, is to survive the games.  The Gamemakers make a rule-change stating that unlike past years, this year two tributes can “win” the games, as long as they are from the same district.  Once that announcement is made, Katniss is all for playing up the romance with Peeta and taking advantage of all that means.

I really did not like Katniss very much.  Of course she will do anything for her family – she volunteered to be tribute in lieu of her sister, in fact.  However, she seems narrow-minded and harsh – disingenuous even.  And she hurts Peeta in the end.

I haven’t read books 2 or 3, so maybe things turn out all right, but I don’t seee how they can, if Katniss remains true to the character developed in the first book.

All-in-all, the book is good, especially for a young adult book.  The theme is very timely – oppression by the government and the desire to remain true to oneself in the face of that.  Those concepts are good.  I just was not a fan of Katniss, which is unfortunate, since she is the main character.  It is nice to see a strong, female lead – a girl who can take care of herself and others in her life, however.

Read it, and tell me what you think!

Health & Fitness

Turmeric Terror

heather

I read somewhere, I don’t quite recall where, that you can make a refreshing face mask out of yogurt mixed with the spice turmeric.  Well, I was cleaning out the fridge today and found an expired container of Fage.  I scrounged around and found some turmeric from who knows when, mixed the two of them together, and presto!  Cheapo face mask.

I slathered my face in the orange paste and let it harden into the consistency of sunbaked clay over the course of 20 minutes. Then I washed my face.  Or attempted to wash my face.  The mask was pasted on.  After a lot of scrubbing, I brought my face up to the mirror, hoping, nay expecting, to see baby-soft, glowing skin.

Instead I saw screaming, angry red blotches all over my face.  In fact, there was a clear line of demarcation on my forehead where the mask stopped and the unassaulted flesh began.

My face, everywhere the mask had been, was bright, sensitive red.  Oh my god, what had I done?!

I rubbed lotion all over my face to no avail.  The heat, my God the heat!

I doused a washcloth with milk and rested it over my skin, dabbing at the injured flesh.  The milk cooled it down, but the redness was only slightly reduced.

I started thinking of reasons to call in sick to work tomorrow.  I can’t very well tell my boss, “I seared my flesh with a witch’s brew of yogurt and decades old turmeric.”

Eventually, however, the tightness and redness started to simmer down.  And now, 5 hours later, the only traces of my brush with a Phantom of the Opera-like visage, is baby soft, glowing skin.  It just took awhile.

So, lessons learned?

1.  Maybe don’t experiment with home remedies on the most obvious part of  your body.

2.  Maybe don’t leave a mask on your face to the point where you almost need a jackhammer to get it off.

3.  Eat yogurt.  Don’t put it on your face.

Product Reviews

Home Haircolor Woes

heather

I’ve dyed my hair at home a countless number of times.  Each time I do it, I swear I am not going to do it again.  Then I get my hair colored at the salon and lament being $85 – $100 poorer. Then I resort to coloring my hair at home again.

Why is coloring one’s hair at home a bad idea, you ask?  Well, I’ve never had a colortastrophe – ended up with green hair or anything crazy.  It’s just, well, a very messy process.  I usually end up ruining at least one shirt and one towel and dying various spots around the bathroom orange – the toilet handle, random spots on the floor, maybe a even a spot or two on the ceiling.  How does this happen?  Who knows?!  I am always super careful.  But I ALWAYS make a mess, and our bathroom is not the same after as it was before.

Anyway, despite my best advice, I colored my hair at home a few weeks ago.  I decided to use a semi-permanent color, in the hopes that the outgrowth would be more natural.  Specifically, I used Clairol Natural Instincts #28 Dark Brown, aka “Nutmeg.”  The color started out almost black, which I am OK with, quickly faded to a perfect shade of cinnamony brown, and then my lighter roots started to peep out.

Fortunately, Clairol was thinking ahead and provided a “Week 2 Color Fresh!” packet (exclamation theirs).  It’s essentially dye mixed with conditioner.  Two weeks after you initially color, you are supposed to wash your hair and then douse your head with this gross looking brown pudding for 5-10 minutes to “refresh” your color.

It didn’t so much refresh my color as refresh the bathroom with a whole new array of orange stains.  They are everywhere – shower curtain, towel, shower walls, shower drain, my hands, and my scalp skin.  Or should I just say scalp?  Do I have to specify “skin” when talking about my scalp?  Who knows.  Who cares, I guess.  Anyway, the refresh packet dyed pretty much everything within a 3 foot radius orange.  My head looks a little weird.  I’m hoping that a good hair washing will return it to a fair normal.

Needless to say, while I might use Natural Instincts again, I will toss the Color Fresh! packet.  Oh, I almost forgot.  It also makes your hair smell a little funny – almost as funny as when I rinsed my hair with apple cider vinegar and didn’t wash it afterwards.  My hair did not smell good.  At all. It smelled a little…spoiled.  And not spoiled like pampered, spoiled like gone bad.

I’ll probably resort to getting my hair professionally colored next time.  I want to get some super dark purple lowlights – just a few random, almost imperceptible pieces.  I can’t do that at home, so I best go to a professional.  I work for a bank holding company, so I can’t do anything too crazy, but I want to do something that breaks up the monochromatic brown-ness of my head.

 

Product Reviews

HTC Rhyme vs iPhone 4s

heather

I recently decided to bite the bullet and get a smart phone.  For the past 2 years I’ve been making do with my Samsung Intensity (dumb phone) and my iPod touch.  But, I was getting tired of carrying around a phone, an iPod touch, and a camera everywhere.  Plus, I just really wanted a smart phone.

So after weeks of reading every review I could find and all the user reviews on Verizon (fyi – everyone either loves or hates their phone), I narrowed it down to the Samsung Charge, HTC Incredible or the Droid X2.  But then, not a day after I purchased a new Hobo International plum colored wallet, Verizon announced the release of the plum colored HTC Rhyme. It was fate.

From what I read, it sounded perfect – smaller form factor (for my dainty woman hands), cool docking station/speaker, better battery life, smooth interface, etc. etc. etc.  So the day after it came out, I got it.

At first I loved it – it was very snappy, call quality was great, I had access to tons of cool apps, It was super easy to use and very, very customizable.  But there were a few things I didn’t like.

The phone came with a light up charm – a rope-type thing that plugs into the phone, which you can thread to hang out your purse.  The charm lights up when you receive a call or text.  I never used it.  It also came with plum colored, no-tangle headphones.  Those suckers were huge, though.  No matter what size covers I put on them, I couldn’t get them to stay in my ears.  Then there was the issue with the mail app.  The native mail app does not recognize when emails are opened on a different device.  Emails you open on your laptop still show as unread on the phone.  It drove me nuts, so I switched to the Gmail app, but it didn’t integrate as well with the other features of the phone (like the notification bar).

All off this I could have lived with, but then I started playing with the camera.  As I mentioned at the outset, a main reason I wanted a smart phone was so I would always have a good camera on me.  Well, the Rhyme’s camera was excellent in every way except for color quality.  All the pictures had a reddish tint to them.  No matter how I adjusted the white balance, I couldn’t get colors to appear true.  See this web album for sample shots.

As I was lamenting the bad color quality, Apple announced the release of the iPhone 4s.  Everyone I know that has an iPhone loves it and loves the camera.  I knew it would be a sure thing from a photo quality perspective, and I was already familiar with the setup and features from my iPod Touch (which I loved).

I traded in my Rhyme and pre-ordered the iPhone.  And I love it.  The pictures are beautiful, the mail app works as it should, the battery life has been great, I love Siri (when she works), and the phone just feels good to hold – nice and solid.  Of course, it lacks the customization of an Android device, and getting pictures and music on and off the phone is more complicated – no more simple drag and drop.   We are primarily a Linux household, but my husband has my laptop dual-booted, so I can boot into Windows if I have to, and for the iPhone, I have to, which is unfortunate as my laptop has something wrong with it and likes to overheat when I have it in Windows.  Besides that, though, it’s great.  Here’s a sample pic for you.

Overall, I’m really happy with the iPhone 4s.  The HTC Rhyme would have been almost perfect, however, if not for the camera issue.  If you are trying to decide between the two and have any questions, ask away in the comments!

 

Books

Crucial Conversations

heather

So…I’ve been trying to read this book.  It’s been sitting on my nightstand for nigh on 4 months, just staring at me, saying “Heather, you really know you should read me.  Put down all that interesting science fiction and read a nice, important, New York Times bestselling book.  Come on, you know you should…”  I finally caved and started to read it.  The book is Crucial Conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high.  I won it in a sort of lottery at a business seminar I went to.  The speaker said it was a good book. Since I finished business school over two years ago, I haven’t picked up one of those suckers, and I felt it was time to get back in the loop of business speak.  That was until I got to page 23 and this quote, “The Pool of Shared Meaning is the birthplace of synergy.”  That sentence just sucked away my will to live and all desire to finish the book.  Sure, sprinkled among the jargon may be some good points about how to have those conversations that no one likes to have, but I just cannot force myself to read one more sentence about synergistic pools of meaning.  Man.

I’ll go back to my Ursula K. LeQuin and sentences like this, “Sacrifice might be demanded of the individual, but never compromise: for though only the society could give security and stability, only the individual, the person, had the power of moral choice – the power of change, the essential function of life.  The Odonian society was conceieved as a permanent revolution, and revolution begins in the thinking mind.” (Quoted from The Dispossessed).

They are both getting to the same thought – that you have to speak your mind and stand up for what you see as truth to get anything accomplished.  I just much prefer Ms. LeQuin’s way of saying it.