Reboot

I've been a baaad blogger. I've had all of the intentions of posting but none of the ambition.

I could say that I haven't had the time but the truth is that I’ve had the time but haven't used it wisely But I've come to realize that I need this blog...I just didn't realize it.

I started to write the following about 6 months ago:

It’s amazing what a difference a few years can make.

I remember making this comment a few years back:

“I could never become a vegetarian. I couldn’t NOT eat meat & cheese!”

I then remember making this comment:

“I’m a vegetarian now but I could never go vegan…that would just be too hard.”

About a year ago I was thinking this:

“I could never go raw…what could I eat?”

Well, I’m not going raw, but I am finding that there are plenty of things to eat that are scrumptious. I’ve made 3 different raw smoothies this week for breakfast and those mornings were my best in a long time. I felt like I had so much energy plus the typical work “crap” didn’t seem to affect me as much as it usually does.

A lot has happened since then. I have worked my way up to running for an hour straight. I’ve lost almost 50 pounds as compared to the same time last year. I’ve given away much of my active wardrobe as it just does not fit anymore.

But I’ve felt myself start to slip recently. As I mentioned, I am able to run for an hour straight whereas I have never, ever been a runner, but the same wonderful person who has been educating me in the raw foods has also shared with me a plan to condition your body for running.

I did great for the 3 months as I was building up to the hour and I did pretty good for a couple of months after that. Then I injured my foot, so I let that sideline me for a couple of weeks. Although my injury is behind me, I still haven’t picked up where I left off.

So, this is part of the reason why I realized that I need this blog. I do not function the best when I am left to my own devices. I need structure.

I just recently cracked open a book that I bought months & months ago and I also bought the follow up to it. These books are Thrive & Thrive: Nutrition by Brendan Brazier. In his follow up book is what I’ve been looking for for years. He illustrates some basic but sensible exercises and the equipment necessary is minimal. He also talks about how to improve your (running) endurance.

So, I’ve created the next phase of my training based upon what he talks about. I have a 5 week plan that I will revise in around weeks. I am tracking how far & how long I am running based on the plan.

I will also soon restart my weight training program based upon his book and revise that as well near the end of the stint.

My nutrition is also an area I need to keep an eye on.

My diet is mainly raw throughout the week. I have a smoothie for breakfast and fruits (and occasionally nuts) for morning & afternoon snacks. My lunches vary from a cucumber/avocado/dulse salad (which I head on a David Wolf podcast) to a salad from Ani Phyo newest book. It’s been a few months but I was eating nut patte wraps as well.

What I intend to do is plan out my menu for the entire week and track my actual intake in comparison.

When I have the free time, I have a wild idea to create a database of foods and their nutritional content. I plan on using this in conjunction with my weekly menu with the intent that it will provide me with a daily tally of all of the vitals (calories, protein, etc).

So, in closing, it is with great anticipation that I reboot this blog and include great content to serve not only myself but whoever may stumble across it.

Here’s to a new beginning!

Long time since I posted...

...so the urging to win this give-away is a good enough reason to start up again.

I saw a tweet about winning a TofuXpress, which I've wanted since I heard about their existence, and along the way I found a new blog to check out every day (http://ieattrees.com/).

Anyway, there's been a few changes to my life in general, but consumption to be more specific.

I've had the pleasure/blessing of meeting a wonderful lady (http://balance-body.blogspot.com/) who is teaching me the way of the Raw Food life.

I've been experiencing some awesome (and I do not use that word lightly) new dishes that I hope to be blogging about soon.

And that is the key word...SOON!

Thyme-Scented Wild Mushroom Bisque

From Robin Robertson's Vegan Planet.

Happy Valentine's Day

Credit

Vegan Italiano cooking

I am a cookbook addict (self-diagnosed).

I can spend hours in the cookbook section of the book store. I am afriad to actually count how many are on our counter, but it's getting to the point where I need to start thinking about increasing my storage capacity.

The problem is that despite all of these cookbooks in my arsenal I always seem to find a recipe online somewhere that I want to try. This doesn't seem like a problem but when my wife doesn't see a return on our investment she starts to question my purchasing decisions.

This problem was averted this past week and my wife spent the good part of the past week scanning a couple cookbooks. One of them was Donna Klein's Vegan Italiano.

She found 5 great looking recipes and instructed me that "we will be making these". Well it wasn't quite like that but she did offer some encouragement in this direction.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we we only able to make 3 of the dishes. We originally made them Saturday night but they turned out so well that we made them again Sunday night!

The neat thing about this book is that the author states that "...this is an authentic Italian cookbook, no tofu or other food substitutes are required...". I was impressed not because I have an aversion to these substitutes (which I definitely don't) but this means that:

- I most likely have all of the ingredients required by a majority of the recipes
- I won't have to make a special trip in to the city (we live in the "boonies" now) in the event I don't have an ingredient (I can go to the "regular" grocery store)
- my family & friends could easily eat these meals and not be freaked out by "that weird Vegan food"

The biggest thing is...it's Italian food! Pasta, sauces, spices, herbs...how can you go wrong!

I'm glad my wife urged us to break into this treasure trove this weekend and we can't wait to try out more of the recipes.

I took a couple of snap shots of the finished products for your viewing pleasure.

Here is the Marianted Olives and Cherry Tomato & Roasted Red Pepper Bruschetta:

Here is the Spinach & Eggplant Lasana:

I’ve UnFriended Myself

I’ve left Facebook…for the time being.

I guess I just didn’t fit in with my circle of Facebook Friends. It seems like I didn’t have anything to offer.

Everyday I would see peoples’ recent kill numbers in Mafia Wars or that someone found a lonely sheep on Farmville. Just the scores that some people were racking up on that week’s video games were discouraging enough.

I just didn’t fit it. Did I want to fit in?

I joined Facebook to connect with people…family, friends, old classmates…the usual. I would get excited when someone I knew long ago would “Friend” me. I would write back to them trying to get caught up, etc but never hear back from them. I certainly would see their results in the latest Facebook poll, what celebrity they “are” or their progress in the aforementioned games.

Even when I posted something (a picture of a dish I just made, or a funny snapshot) I typically would get sarcastic replies…for that I could always count on.

I did meet quite a few people though. Fortunately, I can still follow their updates over on the Twitter.

I guess I kind of see Facebook as high school and Twitter as college. Not in the intellectual sense, but in high school you’re pretty much stuck with what you have (almost like family) but at college the chances of you finding someone or a group of people with like ideas rose dramatically (by no means am I insinuating that the content on Twitter is any more in-depth than Facebook).

There will come a day when I return to Facebook as that is the best way to stay easily connected with some people, but it will be at a much more manageable level.

At the very least this will free up some time to post here more often. Hopefully I can increase the quality and quantity of what I dispense here.

Hopefully…

Win a copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

Check out this site to enter to win a copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.