So it's been 5 days on Core, and things are going... mostly well. My usual routine has been oatmeal for breakfast, leftovers from dinner and an apple or some other fruit for lunch, some more fruit for a snack when I get home from work, dinner, and then a sweet snack/dessert. For the last two days I've found myself hungry just an hour or two after my oatmeal, which is weird, but I think it has more to do with, erm, upcoming female events than anything diet-related.

I like not counting. Or, you know, limited counting. It makes me feel less like I'm "on a diet" and more like I'm just making better choices. What I don't like is the complete and utter ban on bread. You can have it, of course, but you have to spend your points on it. Most of the time I'm okay with that, but it limits my lunch options a little bit. I can't just throw together a sandwich or take a pita and hummus, because I'd rather not spend my discretionary points on bread when I could spend them on, say, a delicious bowl of the carrot cake rice cream that is calling my name from the freezer. But then you have a situation like tonight, when I decided to make flatbread, have one, and put the rest away for use over the next few days. I ended up eating two, for a total of 6 points, because I was really hungry and I'm running low on veggies and I didn't feel like making a big effort for anything else. And now my stomach kind of hurts. Bleh.

So basically, I wish one serving of some wheat bread-like product was on the Core list. It would make my life easier. Also, this plan is much better for people who earn a lot of activity points. There was a time when I was exercising every day and getting 3 or 4 extra points, but right now I'm getting up at 6 am and spending 8 hours a day painting murals outside in the very hot sun, and when I get home I want nothing more than a shower and a comfortable chair in a cool room. I don't know if it's the heat or what, but I've had very little energy of late. Everything takes a lot of effort. It's a little distressing, but I'm too tired to do anything about it.

I'm going into the weekend with less than 5 flex points, and I'm having dinner at my favorite Indian restaurant tomorrow night. I'm not sure how I'm going to swing that. I may just get something bean-based and call it trying my best. On Flex this would probably send me into a spiral of junk food and badness. What's nice about Core is that even if I don't have any flex points left, I can still eat. And even if I go out to eat and I'm eating stuff that might not be Core, I'm not trying to count points for everything I put in my mouth, so I don't feel like a failure if I can't assign a number to something. So far this plan has led to much less obsessing about food and points and more enjoyment of my food. I like it.

And now, some pictures:


Lemon-Herb Seitan (the tofu recipe in Vive le Vegan, but with seitan instead), brown rice, sauteed yellow squash, steamed broccoli. Delicious. After reducing the oil a bit, the lemon-herb seitan is Core enough for me. Meaning that there's a tiny bit of agave (seriously, like 1/2 tsp), I'm not worrying over things like that. Seriously, it's 10 calories worth of agave spread over 2 servings (I halved the recipe). Not a big deal. The seitan is the last of Joanna's awesome chicken-style seitan that I had frozen; I'll have to make up another batch soon.


Joni's 50/50 Flatbread. Easy, and really tasty too. I halved the recipe and made them larger; I got 4 instead of 8. In retrospect, I wish I would've stuck with the little ones, because then eating two wouldn't have cost me so many points. But otherwise, the only downside is that I set off my fire alarm while making these and couldn't get it to shut off for like 3 or 4 minutes, during which time I thought my eyes were actually going to start bleeding. Awesome.

Labels: bread, core plan, seitan, vive le vegan

Posted by Amanda at 7:49 PM | Permalink | Comments

Okay, so it's been well over a month since I posted. A lot has been happening in my life in the last few months.

My boyfriend of 6 1/2 years and I broke up about 2 months ago. I think it was the right thing to do, but it was still the hardest decision I've ever had to make in my life. So now I'm cooking for one and looking for a smaller, cheaper apartment. My emotional state is perhaps not the best it's ever been, and while for the most part I'm okay, I've had little motivation to cook extravagent things when I'm just going to eat by myself in front of the tv. Also, I'm totally guilty of "eating my feelings" over the last few weeks. As if stuffing my face with junk will somehow make me feel better. Yeah, okay. In reality it'll just make me fatter, which, as I'm sure you can imagine, is less with the cheering up. It's a vicious cycle, really.

On the plus side, I started a full-time mural-painting internship almost immediately after school let out 3 weeks ago, in addition to some other freelance work that came my way, and some work that I already had lined up. It's been a good year for me, art-wise. I had a piece make it into the Society of Illustrators student competition; it hung in the gallery show there for most of this month. Another piece was chosen to be the poster artwork for this year's Lancaster Art Walk. It hung up all over the city, which was pretty freakin' sweet. All of this is wonderful, of course, and I'm very thankful for it all - but it's keeping me pretty busy. Which, given the current state of things, is probably good. But it does get in the way of all things food bloggy.

The basic gist of things is that some shit happened, and is happening, and life just keeps marching on, and I'm trying to keep up. And in doing that, I've neglected this blog terribly. Which I feel pretty bad about, I'm not going to lie. I don't like to see things sit and stagnate. But I'm sort of at a crossroads here. I'm not focused so much on cooking new things anymore. I still do, every once in a while, but I can't remember when the last time I opened a cookbook was. So I have no food to blog about, really.

My focus in life has shifted, and in an attempt to keep this blog relevent, I'm going to shift focus here as well. I need to get my eating and my weight under control. It's a source of a lot of negativity, stress, and depression for me, and I'm tired of doing nothing about it. Today I started following the Weight Watcher's Core program. I am going to blog about it. In an odd twist, this will make my blog name actually match the subject for once. Neat. I'll still post about food, and recipes, and I'll still do candy reviews occasionally. But the scope of the blog, if it's not completely different, has effectively shifted.

(I was going to say "expanded," but it reminded me too much of how my ass is steadily expanding, and I'd like to start this new endeavor on a positive note.)

Posted by Amanda at 7:35 PM | Permalink | Comments