Book Club & Upcoming Trip!

Today was my very first foray into joining a ‘book club.’ If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may know that I recently moved back to Phoenix (well, it’s been 2 1/2 months, so maybe that’s not so ‘recently’) and am actively searching for fun friends. I’m absolutely sure I’ll meet some cool people at work but, since I haven’t started working yet, I thought I’d get a head start on making some new friends out of work.

Enter: book clubs! Combine reading + new friends + talking about books + refreshments and me, and what do you get? A very happy Melissa indeed! I’m part of this ‘New to Phoenix’ ladies-only Meetup group (by the way, if you haven’t checked out meetup.com and you’re looking to meet people/do stuff, I highly suggest you check it out!), and they just started a new monthly book club event. Hooray!

The location of this book club was pretty far from where I live, but it was in a super familiar part of town (basically, the side of town where I grew up), so I was acquainted with the location and knew exactly how to get there. I think if I hadn’t been familiar with the area, I would have passed on this event and waited for the next book club meet up, but I lucked out.

We read Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen (summary here), and I thought the book was really good. I’m not really into reading fiction books on my own, and I highly doubt I would have ever chosen to read this book if it hadn’t been “required.” However, I’m really glad I read it because it was a cute and short book, the kind you can’t really put down.

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So, did I make any friends? I definitely can say I made one friend for sure (she happens to live across the street from me, so we may carpool for future meet ups!) but I’m unsure as to whether or not we would get along. She’s my age, but she’s very, very opinionated and I feel like I might tire of that rather quickly… there were two other ladies I hit it off with (one who is in her early 30s and the other is more late 30s), but didn’t get to talk to a lot, so we’ll see. I wasn’t brave enough to get their phone numbers or exchange emails, but hopefully at the next book club event, we’ll get to talk more.

As for the Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead Reboot, I’m still sitting on a 5-lb. loss. The boyfriend and I have dropped strength training from our workout routine and have just been doing cardio, so we’ll see if that pumps up the weight loss any faster. I’m personally okay with just doing cardio for now, because I had kinda fallen off the whole ‘Run to 5k’ challenge, and now I’m back on it

And as for my upcoming trip? Guess where I’m going?!

Portland, Oregon! Woohoo!! This is kind of like my graduation present/trip from my parents, although I’m just going with my Dad. We’ll be there for 5 days, and I’m super excited. It’s the perfect place for a vegetarian ‘hippie’ like myself! I’ll be sure to share photos with you all when I return!

That said… do you have any suggestions for places/restaurants/food carts to visit in Portland? I have a list of places I’d like to go, but if anyone wants to share their suggestions, I’m all ears!

Yelp Phoenix’s Ultimate pleY Date!

Time for good news/bad news! Bad news – those dastardly cats of ours chewed on our very last Apple USB Charger/Sync cord, so not only do I have no way to charge my Phone or Blake’s iPod, but (more tragically!) I don’t have any way to sync the photos I took over the weekend to my computer…

Harsh, Izzy.

But you’re in luck! For this post, at least, my pictures a) sucked and b) a professional photographer took photos, so I can share those with you! Hooray! (I’m also in luck– I have a charge cord in my car, and I ordered a new charger on Amazon, which saved me $10 vs. buying it at the Apple store. Woo!)

On to the good news– (back story) as you may or may not know, since I moved back to Phoenix, I’ve been on a quest to make new friends who like to go out and do stuff. I moved away from Phoenix after high school, and I’ve been gone for about six years. Since then, I’ve either fallen out of touch with my old high school friends, or they moved away, or they got married and had kids and now we have nothing to talk about (I love their kids but there is only so much ‘talking about babies’ that I can handle…). Suffice to say, I’m looking for friends who are in my situation– recent grads or working professionals who like to go out to brunch, randomly go out to movies, hit up a mani/pedi spot, grab a coffee and just talk gossip. If they have boyfriends who get along with Blake, all the better, but single friends are awesome too because I love living vicariously through them

Anyway, I’ve been doing a lot to meet up and make more solid friendships. One of the coolest things? Going to Yelp Phoenix’s Ultimate ‘pleY’ date (pronounced ‘play’, Yelp backwards!)

By the way, all of these photos are from Melon Fish Photo, the company that took the photos for the Yelp event. I did not take these photos, and full credit goes to Yelp and Melon Fish!

In case you don’t know what Yelp is (shame on you), it’s like Angie’s List (I assume), but free. People like you and me review anything and everything– restaurants, apartment complexes, doctors, hairdressers, clubs, bars, landmarks, museums… and that’s just a list of stuff I’ve reviewed. It’s very legit– users who sign up just to write a hateful review are ‘filtered’– only people who consistently leave solid reviews show up. Eventually, if you write a couple solid reviews (AKA you don’t just write ‘I hate this place, it was lame’ or “omg this place was so cool!!”), people will “thumbs up” your reviews as either Useful, Funny, or Cool.

And, if people really like your reviews, they nominate you to become a ‘Yelp Elite’… which is what I am That means I wrote enough Useful/Funny/Cool reviews and I participated a modest amount on the forums (basically just answering other people’s questions– for example, if someone said, what are some cool things to do in Phoenix?, I’d write in and tell them about downtown Phoenix, hiking, etc.) for someone to nominate me.

Long story short, it wasn’t exactly the fact that I’m an ‘Elite’ on Yelp that got me (and Blake) into this event, but it certainly helped.

And boy, was it fun! Thursday night is a random night to have an event, but it worked out. The play date was hosted by the Phoenix Children’s Museum, and it was a way for the Museum to raise money for events. The Yelp event raised over $5000, which is pretty darn good!

Outside of the Children's Museum

A Children’s Museum without the children? Sign me up!

Waiting outside to get in

While we waited to sign in, a bunch of food trucks lined up outside with those Kind health bars, coffee, donuts, and (I think) hot dogs… free for us to eat outside! Yum!

They also had these really nifty performers/people on stilts walking around outside… the guy on the right juggled these glow in the dark pins, as did this guy in stilts…

We tore this map up! Treasure hunt!

Once we got inside, we got our pictures taken (still have to find those…) and were given this map. Three floors of alcohol, food, and entertainment??? I’d died and gone to heaven!

Food!

Okay, so not the healthiest food I ate all night, but omg, these brownie/fudge bites were scrumptious! I know we have this company’s card here somewhere, but I’m pretty sure they’re called JJ’s Fudge. They even had a chipotle fudge bite we could have tried, but we were too chicken

Drinks!

One of the many alcoholic places we visited… Cruz Tequila! Hands down, some of the best tequila I’ve had and I’m not just saying that because it was free (although that probably helped…) We got two free shots and a margarita, which unfortunately meant the whole night went by a whole lot quicker and blurrier for me… It was also the most popular booth at the event, as you can see above!

Entertainment!

This jungle gym (three stories of it!) was by far my favorite thing about the museum. I am terrified of heights, but the thrill of being on this jungle gym (plus being safely enclosed, plus, you know, the alcohol) overrode my fears. Blake and I (and about 10-15 other people at any given time) ran up, down, around, slid down things, climbed up, and just generally laughed and crashed our way around this jungle gym. I was actually glad I’m only 5’2, because Blake was practically hunched over the entire time, whereas I just kinda ducked but basically walked around unimpeded… like a child!

There was also a ton of other stuff to see and do– a “bread toss” where you threw a loaf of bread through different sized holes– if you got the bread through the smallest hole, you won a long loaf of bread (not the tossed bread, that’d be gross.) Blake won that, so that was cool! I also got a free shirt, plus we got coupons for free tacos at Rubio’s, free pizza, and free massages. And did I mention all the stuff at the booths was free? Aw, yeah.

Blake and I got to talk to a couple people, but the event was so packed it was actually pretty hard to ‘make’ friends. I’m looking forward to the smaller events Yelp throws to see if I can better get to know people.

All in all, a very successful Yelp event! Happy May Day, everyone!

Day 19: Think Positive & product review

Hey everyone! Sorry to be MIA for a day or two… I’ve been sucked into some projects for school (I’m taking 2 really cool classes this quarter: Project Management and Professional Communications) and, while they’re a lot of work, they’re really fun, interesting, and practical for my future jobs. I’m learning so much already, and it’s only week 4! We’re on the quarters system, so only 6 more weeks of school left… then I’ll be finished with graduate school! Yes, I know, that’s blowing my mind too. However, I’ve had so much to do that I haven’t really been able to think about it much, which is good!

Anyway, on to Day 19 of the VegNews challenge: Think Positive. I find this challenge to actually be challenging for once… even though I’m a pretty optimistic person…

Leaving my family to go back to school in Denver

Smiling and laughing even though at that point I was leaving to go back to school after winter break (and, mind you, a terribly awkward photo because when I have to get on a plane, I always freak out and inevitably I always forget something I desperately need – like the phone charger!), but I haven’t been very optimistic lately.

I think one of the reasons for this setback has to do with the product review I have for today: Cherrybrook Kitchen. Here’s the back story: My roommate and I have been (good-naturedly) teasing our friend for not having any survival/adult skills, like cooking. To prove us wrong, he invited us and some friends over to his house for dinner. We accepted, of course, and volunteered to bring the dessert. I thought of making a chocolate cake, because apparently a friend has a great recipe, but timing didn’t work out and she wasn’t able to send me her recipe.

However, while I was trolling Whole Foods for vegan yummys, I stumbled across Cherrybrook!

Dairy free! Vegan!

(source)

And right next to, vanilla dairy-free, egg-free frosting. I couldn’t have been more excited! I went home and proceeded to make the cake exactly according to the directions: cake mix, vegetable oil, and water. Easy-peasy, right? So far so good! I didn’t have a cake pan, so I put it in a loaf pan, and when it came out and cooled, I put it on a cutting board because the cake was so long.

It sorted broke in transit...

The cake had a weird indent in the middle of it, but my roommate and I tried a piece and it wasn’t too bad.

Then came the frosting… oh, the horror. It was super crunchy, so I had to stir it vigorously for a couple minutes, but even after stirring it still looked atrocious.

No dirty minds, please! Or, if you weren’t thinking like that, sorry for bringing any bad images to your mind. My roommate and I haven’t quite matured when it comes to inappropriate jokes

Anyway, we persevered because we thought, hey, how bad could this vegan cake be? We diligently put the broken part of the cake back and covered the whole thing in frosting. In our optimism, we even lightly dusted the top of the cake with cocoa powder.

Final product...

So how did it taste? It. Was. Atrocious. That’s all I can say about it. I tried, and my roommate tried, to be fair. We really, really did. We said to one another, “this might be delicious maybe if it had more vanilla” and “what in the world is missing from this cake?” It was TASTE. The whole thing tasted like cardboard. I wanted to die.

So we ended up going to Safeway at the last minute and bought a Tres Leches cake. And yes, I know leche means milk. This cake was not vegan. But, by the end of the night, I ate a piece because you know why? I was starving and my friend’s empanadas were terrible. Apparently the meat empanadas he made were good (according to my roommate) but he definitely burnt the heck out of my vegetarian ones and they were also cardboard.

Friday was a hard night, my friends. I came home and consoled myself with Silk vanilla soy yogurt and berries for “dessert”… and a glass of red wine. It was just one of those nights.

By the way! I’m instituting a new rating system! Instead of stars, I’m giving food/products/restaurants I review carrots. So what does Cherrybrook Kitchen get? One carrot!

Cherrybrook Kitchen's Choc. Cake and Frosting gets 1 carrot/5 carrots!

Apparently, I’m not the only one who didn’t dig this cake: check it. (And this reviewer looks professional so I take comfort in the fact that it’s not my horrid baking skills!)

Typically I’m a good baker so I’m taking VegNews’ suggestion to stay positive. I will bake again!

Days 16 & 17: Think about the future & Turn off the TV!

Hey, great news! VegNews has decided to publish its totally awesome ’31 Changes in 31 Days’ challenge, which you can check out here! If you’re interested in where I am, or interested in trying out the challenge for yourself, you should check it out! It’s really great and, so far, surprisingly easy! Hey, I’ve even gotten addicted to broccoli, so it’s been good for that too

You're looking mighty yummy, Mr. Broccoli...

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To recap, here is the beginning of the challenge for me. I’m about half way through and, yes, I’ve made some mistakes. I know I’m going to end up making more this weekend, mostly due to hanging out with friends (a friend is cooking dinner for us and I’m bringing a vegan chocolate cake… as much as he understands veganism, I highly doubt he’ll check every ingredient, but I’m okay with that!)

I haven’t exactly followed every single VegNews recommendation every day but I’ve definitely made an effort. Most importantly, I’ve been sticking with boot camp like a champ (hey, that rhymes) -  I just finished my second week of boot camp today! Plus I’ve discovered some new stuff (yum!) and I’ve realized how it can sometimes be a pain in the butt to be vegan. Going out with friends has definitely been the hardest thing so far! Surprisingly, making my own food hasn’t been as much of a pain as I thought, but going out and being unable to order things because they have dairy in them sometimes sucks A lot of places don’t make accommodations!

Anyway, I’m glad I’ve made it this far, and I haven’t made up my mind yet as to whether or not I’ll carry on being “strictly” (80/20 sense of the word) vegan. I still have another 2 weeks(ish) to decide, so we’ll see!

On to yesterday and today’s challenges: Think about the future (AKA kids!) and turn off the TV. I haven’t done a whole lot of research (yet!) into raising kids vegan, but VegNews has some cool links to veg- and kid-friendly organizations, plus a tidbit on how eating a lot of veggies can help help reduce a woman’s risk of delivering a pre-term baby.

My future shopping cart... with or without the kiddo!

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Finally, by my favorite blog vegansaurus, the cutest series you will find anywhere on the web: Happy Veggie Kids! All these kids are either vegan or vegetarian and they are PRECIOUS! Seriously, check this out if you still need your daily dose of cute!

As for turning off the TV… considering I was super busy all day, I haven’t been home to be enticed by the TV. When I had a spare moment to myself (and was munching on dinner), I did turn on the TV to watch the South Carolina Republican debates, but then I got nauseous (and interrupted by my talkative roommate), so I gave up on that.

Tonight I’m just going to chill and read. I really did a lot today (my next post will be about that!) and I was up at 5:45 this morning for boot camp so… early bedtime for me!

Question for you all: Have you ever considered raising your (potential or already existing) kid/s vegetarian or vegan? Is that something you would let them “choose” when they grow up, or raise them that way now? How does your partner/spouse/significant other feel about raising a potential/real life kid vegetarian/vegan?

Days 14 & 15: Eat plants & be scared!

Yesterday and today’s challenge from VegNews‘ ‘31 Changes in 31 Days‘ focus on health: Eat plants (Day 14) and get scared (Day 15.) Strangely enough, I didn’t have a salad yesterday, although I ate the heck out of some steamed edamame… yum!

Yesterday was a super busy day for me – I skipped the gym (that was a much needed rest day!), had a meeting with my student group at an “Asian fusion” restaurant, then had a group meeting and finally class. In between, I was slammed with the homework I didn’t do over the weekend (oh, the perils of having a social life!) but I’m sure you’ll be happy to know I did not break any of my “rules” (basically, don’t eat anything not vegan). Yesterday I also I didn’t eat a ton of plants, which was unfortunate… :-/ It was just a “eat quick meals” day – oatmeal for breakfast (with blueberries!), a rice bowl w/ grilled tofu and steamed broccoli for lunch, and a peanut butter and banana sandwich for dinner. Yeah.. it was one of those days!

Today was equally busy (homework, lunch date with a friend, class, more homework), but I kinda-sorta enjoyed some greens!

(source)

Mad Greens, that is! Apparently, Mad Greens is only here in Colorado, which is unfortunate, but it’s pretty much just like the “Choice Greens” shops we have in Arizona. So good! I got the Mediterranean salad, which is a pasta salad, vs. a traditional salad, plus a side of tomato soup. I checked to make sure the tomato soup was vegan (it was more like minestrone, without the pasta) BUT I forgot to check to see if my salad dressing was vegan… it wasn’t I only noticed after the lady had put the dressing on… fail! Raspberry vinaigrette, how dare you do me like that!

However, the lunch date with my friend was amazing, and we got caught up on each other’s lives. Sometimes you just need to take that break, get out of the house (or work) and catch up with a friend. I really felt great

Oh, speaking of not feeling great… it took all of my willpower (and all of bf Blake’s text-motivation) to get me out of bed and to boot camp this morning. You see, Tuesday is when we run the STAIRS.

I'm going to have nightmares about these stairs, for real

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These stairs look a lot nicer than the stairs we run… we run the hockey arena stairs which, to my calculation, are something like 14 flights of 20-25 stairs per flight… and that might be conservative. I stop counting/black out around flight #10… haha, I don’t really black out, but sometimes I want to!

Today I was proud of myself though… I did all the flights except one (last week, I skipped 5 flights) and I only went over my time by 2 seconds. Huge improvement!

After the stairs, we completed the following exercises:

• Sway push ups (3 sets of 12)
• Reverse lunge flies with light weights (I used 4 lbs.) (3 sets of 16)
• V-up curls (3 sets of 15)
• Bent over row with tricep kickbacks (3 sets of 15) (I used 7.5 lb weights)
• Hinge with lateral raises (3 sets of 12)
• Plant tap outs (2 sets of 20)
• Back extension twists (3 sets of 18)
• Bicycle crunches (3 sets of one minute each)… 3 min. of bicycle crunches… ow!!

Although I hate the stairs, I felt super pumped afterwards, so (although I’m loathe to admit it), I’m glad I went!

All right, so today is Get Scared, and I feel as if I haven’t scared you enough. However, this is a long post and I have to get back to homework, so here’s a recap from VegNews:

• If trends in the US continue, “half the population will be obese by 2030, which could result in an additional 8.5 million cases of diabetes” (I blame you, Paula Deen) and “7.3 million cases of heart disease and stroke, and 669,000 cases of cancer.” VegNews then tells you to imagine the ones you love, stricken with these diseases. Get scared!

And here’s an excellent recap by the Vegan Consultant, who shares videos from world renowned doctors and leaders on the health benefits of a vegan diet.

I promise a more in depth look at the health benefits of a vegan diet (because I do enjoy scaring you all very much), but I really must finish this paper, so I leave you with my favorite comic by Vegansaurus!

Day 13: Be persistent & Black Bean Brownies

After yesterday’s day of mistakes, I’m definitely ready for today’s VegNews challenge: Be persistent. I woke up this morning really not wanting to go to the gym (it’s Sunday after all! Can’t I get a break?!) But then I heard my roommate get up and I remembered what I had ate the day before, so I got my butt up and out of there.

Like VegNews notes in the challenge, balancing “work, family” and they say “activism” but I’ll say “school/social life” is a big challenge. It’s especially difficult when you’re trying to weigh having a good time out with your friends vs. your diet, and it’s difficult when you have to choose between the gym or getting in some extra homework time. There have definitely been days when I just want to throw in the towel and eat something unhealthy, or not get up and go to the gym, but then I always regret it the next day. I either feel gross (from drinking too much or eating too heavy/greasy food) or I just feel lethargic (from not exercising). That’s not to say I won’t “make mistakes” or prioritize friends/school over gym time, but it’s a balance. Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s not. Knock on wood, this month has been good to me so far!

As usual, I didn’t regret going to the gym. I warmed up by running on the stairs (6 times, 3 flights each,  12 steps per flight… took me about 10 minutes… it hurt!!) and riding the bike (15 minutes). I then did a leg workout that consisted of:

• 2 sets of 10 leg curls (50 lbs.)
• 3 sets of lunges (body-weight)
• 5 sets of squats
• 3 sets of 50 lbs each on the adductor and abductor machines (vag machines)
• crunches (side planks, planks, regular crunches)
• And a butt workout, of which I’ll share later…

I feel like I did more, but that’s all I remember right now so.. there you go!

Today we’re celebrating our friends’ birthdays that we missed (they are December babies, and we weren’t in town for their birthdays), and I decided to make Black Bean Brownies from Happy Herbivore…

Scene of the crime!

I liked the fact that I could throw all the ingredients into the blender. That was awesome! However… I think I used the wrong type of oats. It called for instant oats, and I used regular oats… :-/

Minus the oats, I have to say the black bean brownies did not come out the way I expected them to. I had heard that black bean brownies can be really good, but these are just weird…

As you can see, I took a chunk out to test them before presenting them to my friends… I’m still going to give them to my friends, because oh well, but I don’t think I’d make this recipe again ever. It’s too sweet, has a weird consistency (not cake-like, probably because there’s no flour in this), and just… not what I expected.

I guess I’m still looking for the perfect (vegan) brownie recipe then!

Okay, off to get ready for our fiesta – then I have work!

Question for you all: Have you ever made vegan black bean brownies? What recipe did you use, and how did they turn out?

Day 6: Eat broccoli

One of the words I still find surprisingly hard to spell… broccoli! Today’s challenge from VegNews’ ’31 Changes in 31 Days’ is: Eat broccoli.

First, some health info on why broccoli is so amazing for you:

• Broccoli has nutrients like vitamin A, vitamin C, folic acid, calcium, and fiber (source)
• Vitamin C helps with iron absorption in the body
• Broccoli also can help prevent cataracts, and eases the symptoms of the common cold (source)
• According to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, broccoli is also likely to prevent colon cancer
• Boiled broccoli has more vitamin C than an orange, and as much calcium as a glass of milk (source)

To be honest… I had no idea broccoli was so good for us! I always knew it was good to eat broccoli, for some reason, and whenever I would buy bags of frozen vegetables, I’d always make sure they came with some bits of broccoli… but wow! Now I’m actually excited to eat more broccoli

I just decided to saute fresh broccoli with garlic in olive oil and a little salt/pepper. I was intrigued by Isa Chandra from the Post Punk Kitchen version, which you can read about here, but then I was too lazy to do it… :-/

Today I decided not to go to the gym because something tragic happened last night: the boiler in our ghetto apartment complex broke! And, of course, it snowed last night. So not only did I go to bed absolutely freezing, I woke up absolutely freezing knowing that the sidewalks would be icy… so, I decided to stay in bed and keep warm.

However, I did go to brunch with friends this morning to a Latin Fusion restaurant, and I thought I was going to be totally screwed for food options… luckily, this was not the case! I was able to get fried plantains topped with cinnamon, and a “sweet potato mash” that came with grilled veggies. Yum! So today’s food choices were pretty good:

Breakfast: Fried plantains w/ cinnamon, sweet potato mash, 2 glasses mimosas (yum!!)

Lunch: A mock-tuna sandwich from Happy Herbivore, small glass of soymilk

Dinner: Roasted broccoli with garlic and quinoa (leftover quinoa)

Snacks: Gala apple, small bowl of Rice Bits with soymilk

Day 5: Get enough vitamin B12

Today’s challenge from VegNews magazine’s ’31 Changes in 31 Days’ was a little confusing to me. Today’s challenge is: Get enough vitamin B12. I have a confession to make… before I started reading up on B12, I honestly did not know that much about it, and I didn’t even think it was that important.

(source)

Lucky for me, VegNews has put this vitamin on my radar, and I have to say, I could not have been more wrong about the importance of B12. For one, although a vegan diet is completely healthy and you can get everything you need from it, B12 is a little different/screwy. Back “in the old days”, our ancestors would eat fruits and veggies straight from the ground. Being that it was the old days, often times these veggies weren’t completed cleaned properly and still had dirt on them. Since B12 comes from the soil, this was how our ancestors got their B12. Nowadays, our food arrives so sanitized that we don’t get the same amount of B12, if we get any at all. People who eat meat, however, do get B12 from the cow that ate from the ground (B12 is a bacteria that lives in the ground).

Now, why is B12 important?

• B12 is imperative for cell division and blood formation. (source)
• B12 is also necessary for your red blood cells, which transport oxygen and carbon dioxide around your body. (source)
• If you aren’t ingesting adequate amounts of B12, you could suffer from anemia or nervous system damage

Where can I get vitamin B12?

• nutritional yeast
• fortified cereals/milks/mock meats
• B12 supplements

(source)

For more information, check out Vegan Health.

Thankfully, I’ve been cooking a lot from Happy Herbivore‘s cookbook, and Lindsay uses a lot of nutritional yeast, so I think I’m doing fine for now. However, because of this challenge, I am much more aware of B12 than I ever was before, and my plan is to go out and purchase a vegan-friendly supplement of vitamin B12 at my natural grocery store.

This was perhaps the most eye-opening of all the days so far, and I’m glad I read up on B12!

To let you all know about yesterday… it turns out there was another vegan at my friend’s potluck, and she brought a minestrone soup, so I actually had a lot of yummy things to eat. My meal for dinner yesterday was:

Dinner (Day 4): Minestrone soup and bread, tortilla chips and my Mexican Bean Dip, my friend’s dark chocolate cherry nut no-bake cookies (dark chocolate! I’m crossing my fingers it was vegan… still think dark chocolate is better than milk!) Yum! I even have a tiny bit left over bean dip, which I plan on putting into a burrito today

For today, my food intake has been a little weird, but here goes:

Breakfast: One slice toast w/ Earth Balance butter, big green drank

Lunch: Rice “chex” (the cheap version) with blueberries and Silk soymilk

Dinner: (I haven’t had it yet but I’m planning on a whole wheat burrito w/ the red of my Mexican Bean Dip, lettuce, tomatoes, and some black beans if there’s not enough Bean Dip left)

Tonight, I’m going out to a bar with my friends to meet up for the new year and to discuss our classes. I’m hoping to Barnivore the beers I like before I go, so I can already be prepared!

Question for you all: Did you recognize the importance of B12 before, or were you as unaware as I was? Do you take multivitamins or supplements?

Day 4: Work Out & customized work out plans

I have to say, out of all the 31 changes in VegNews‘ ’31 Changes in 31 Days’, Day 4: Work out has to be the easiest for me. Luckily, I was already planning on working out, and I got my work out done with earlier this morning.

In today’s explanation, vegan bodybuilder Robert Cheeke says “consistency and application” are the ways to succeed at exercising, and boy is that true. Over the holiday break, for the few days I didn’t go to the gym (because of travel, or the holidays, or family obligations), I felt lethargic and definitely not in the mood to work out the next day. If anything, I kinda wanted to never work out again.

Lucky for me, I’m surrounded by people who value health and exercise. While I was with my parents, my Mom motivated me to work out and go to the gym with her for our health. I would say my family background is moderately healthy– we don’t have anything too crazy that runs in our family, just the normal things. But for some family members, we’ve seen them deteriorate quite rapidly because they didn’t take care of themselves at all- overweight, smoked, drank, you name it, they did it. And they died fairly young because of it.

Since Mom and I have way too many things we want to do in the future (traveling!), we motivated each other and encouraged each other to go to the gym. It’s always fun having a work out buddy, and it’s even better when that work out buddy is your Mom

Today’s work out was devoted to arms, and consisted of:

• 15 min. warm up on the elliptical (1 mile)
• 5 min. bike “warm up”
• 3 sets of 12 bicep curls (8 lb. weights)
• 3 sets of 10 tricep kickbacks (8 lbs.)
• 3 sets of 12 dumbbell shoulder presses (8 lbs.)
• 3 sets of 10 push ups
• 3 sets of 12 “tree hugs” (8 lbs.)
• 5 min. on the rowing machine

Again, crossing my fingers I feel it tomorrow! There weren’t as many people at the gym today, probably because I went earlier (8 am vs. 10 am). There were, however, a lot of people there with individual personal trainers. Looks like a lot of people are taking their New Year’s Resolutions seriously…

I actually found something really cool from Shape – a customized work out plan! Basically, you choose 8 work outs from their selection of videos (lots to choose from!) and then create your own “play list”. It seems really cool! I can’t wait to play around with this and learn some new routines.

Tonight I can’t exactly share with you everything I’m eating/drinking… I’m going to a friend’s potluck in a few hours, and I have no idea what will be there. I can, however, show you what I’m bringing to this potluck…

Happy Herbivore’s Mexican Dip! Yum! It was such a big hit the last time I brought it to a party, I figured I absolutely had to do it again. It’s quickly becoming one of my go-to party foods! You might notice it looks a little strange in the middle… yeah well, when I took it out of the oven, I couldn’t resist trying a little bit… you know, to make sure it tasted okay

So run down of my meals thus far:

Breakfast: Green drank and half a peanut butter sandwich

Lunch: Happy Herbivore’s Mock Tuna Sandwich and a glass of milk

Dinner: (guessing): Mexican dip and my corn tortilla chips… maybe some soup, if someone brings it (I heard they were)… and wine… and we’ll see!

Snacks: I finished up the rest of the green drank because I needed the blender, and then I’m going to have an apple and some almonds before hitting the fiesta tonight.

Tomorrow’s ‘challenge’ is: Get enough vitamin B12. Looks like I’ll be reading up on exactly what B12 is tomorrow…

Until then! A question for you all: What is your favorite dish (vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore) to bring to potluck parties? Or do you usually stop at the grocery store and buy something pre-made? (We’ve all done it!

Day 3: Love Yourself

Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 3 of my ’31 Changes in 31 Days’ challenge, courtesy of VegNews magazine. If you just started reading, I’m following VegNews’ ’31 Changes in 31 Days’ “guide to a complete overhaul in just one month.” It’s a personal challenge to myself to live as a vegan for one month, something I have been interested in doing and finally decided to make happen. If you want to read my “rules” for completing the challenge, scroll down or click here.

(source)

Today’s challenge is: Love yourself. Like I mentioned in my last post, I have fairly high self-esteem and thought that loving myself today, and everyday, would be easy. Wouldn’t you know it, today I got an email from my federal loan “owners”, letting me know my loans for grad school had been disbursed. Curious to see how much crushing debt was added this quarter, I clicked over and quickly spied… my entire debt. From college and grad school.

If there was ever a day that I didn’t love myself, today was that day. I briefly panicked and had a black out moment where I thought “omg, I’m never ever going to pay this off. They will be getting money from me until I die!” Then I went online and started looking for high paying jobs. Not that I don’t regularly check the job sites, but this time I was looking for high paying jobs. The ones you lose your soul too because you have to work 24/7. I didn’t care. The debt was still flashing before my eyes.

And then… I found several really cool, really interesting jobs. One in particular piqued my interest and, while I’m no where near qualified for it (yet), I have a feeling it might one day be my dream job. I’m keeping it quiet for now because I don’t want to jinx it, but I’ll let you know what other job I got super excited for: crime analyst. Awwww yeah! Analyzing crimes, charts and graphs, thinking outside the box, working with a bunch of people on crime statistics? Um, yes please! Super cool! On one hand, the job I found online as a Crime Analyst Technician I also wasn’t really qualified for, but I’m so on the crime analyst path right now. I’m going to stalk those job boards now and forever until another position like that comes up!

So after that, I really started feeling better about myself. I also had a piece of dark chocolate my boss had given me the other day… and now that I’m doing some reading, apparently not all dark chocolate is vegan (I mistakenly thought it was), so… again, that might have been another fail. :-/ Well, I went about eating it with the right intentions, so we’ll go with that.

I also was able to spend a lot of time with friends I hadn’t seen all break, which was lovely. In sum, I guess I would say I didn’t go out of my way to do anything special to make myself feel loved today (unless you count having a Corona at dinner tonight, which was fantastic) but considering all that I did do, I feel accomplished and feeling accomplished (even if it’s just little things, like having a beer with friends, or getting all my errands done) makes me love myself. I guess I’m one of those people who has to be doing something, anything… being bored would definitely make me hate myself!

No matter what, you (and by you I mean me) would be super proud of me. Today I went to Costco to do food shopping with my roommate, and all the samples were out. Good stuff too, like grilled cheese samples and ravioli samples and yogurt samples… and I didn’t eat any of it. I was starving, but even as I watched my roommate eat it, I stayed away. For a broke grad student to be handed free samples of food and to turn it away… now that is willpower, my friends!

I’m still sore from yesterday’s work out (hooray!) and after 3 hours of running errands, I would say not going to the gym was okay today. Tomorrow, gym!

Today’s food:

Breakfast: Rice chex (well, the cheaper version from Kroger – ‘Rice Bits’) w/ soymilk and blueberries, small glass of green drank, 2 slices toast w/ Earth Balance butter.

Lunch: I was starving and sore so: peanut butter and half a banana on 2 slices 9-grain bread, soymilk

Dinner: 2 vegetable samosas from Tandoor Chef (frozen) – I should have taken a picture of these! They were really yummy w/ 1 Corona Light.

Snack: raw almonds (not salted)

I can see I definitely need to incorporate more veggies or fruit into tomorrow’s meals…

Tomorrow I’ll be busy: potluck tomorrow at a good friend’s house, gym, and studying, but don’t worry, I’ll still be blogging! Tomorrow’s challenge is: Work out. Oh YES! I so have that checked off!