I love facebook. But, I'm not one of those people that feels the need to post every minute of my day on there as a 'status update'. On the other hand, I do find something reassuring about putting my thoughts and feelings out there in to the universe in hopes that someone cares. So, here it is!
I'm starting the Advocare 24 day Challenge tomorrow. I'm a little nervous. Overall, I can do a cleanse and I like having a goal and a challenge. This, though, is a particularly odd cleanse to me because it has SO MANY PILLS!! Fiber pills, cleanse pills, supplements, vitamin pills, blah blah blah. I just hope they do something good and I'm not flushing my money down the toilet along with all the extra vitamins and fiber and "toxins".
I went to the store today to stock up on some good veggies and such. Unfortunately I thought I had some things in the pantry and was wrong so... I'm not as prepared as I should be. But I'll get through the first couple of days no problem and go from there. I'll have to do my week's worth of shopping for the hubby on Sunday or Monday anyways so I'll have a better plan by then and stock up on the rest. My biggest complaint so far is that the structure of the challenge isn't so veggie friendly. There is a lot of emphasis on a paleo kind of diet - lots of meat and veggies with very little starches and carbs. That's a great plan, but what do I do when I don't eat meat?? And they consider beans to be carbs? Well... there goes my main source of protein.
So far my main plan is breakfast of egg whites with veggies and salsa, fruit for a snack, a smoothie for lunch (easier to digest before my afternoon run), half a sweet potato for post workout snack, and a quinoa and veggie meal for dinner. After dinner I always want something sweet so I may splurge a little on nuts with a little vegan chocolate until I can totally get off of sugar.

 Prepping veggies and fruit for my daily smoothies. I hope I won't be able to taste the kale :-/ blech

Main goals for this challenge: lose weight, break my coffee and sugar addiction, and get on a better eating schedule (good portions, balanced meals, and no snacking!!) Hopefully that's not too ambitious for on 24 day period :)

I cooked!! When the hubby is gone and I'm working all week... I really don't feel like cooking when I get home. I know I'm not the only one that feels that way, but I don't have any other mouths in the house to feed so if I don't feel like cooking then I just don't! :D

But, I need to be taking a lunch to work this week so I don't keep spending money or wasting time having to drive somewhere to get food. Plus, with my current way of eating, my options are quite limited. I'm already vegetarian with no problems, but trying to glide into being vegan is proving to be much more difficult. I don't eat/drink dairy products in general but it's harder to get rid of all the foods that have eggs and milk cook or baked in.... bread, pudding, etc :) Last week we had a potluck at work and someone brought the yummiest banana pudding!!! Oh man I indulged on that for a while, and loved it!

So, this week I am changing! I've been exercising more, which is helping, but if I can get my eating in check then the lbs will just fall off.... right?? Well, let's hope so at least! Today I did one of my favorite kind of recipes - take a bunch of stuff I have in the fridge and pantry and just throw it all together!!

I am growing to love these noodles!

I have started using this brand of brown rice noodles. The texture is not exactly the same but they are a great substitute for when cutting out gluten. 

Grab what's in the fridge!!

 My basic ingredients: a variety of peppers, red onion, broccoli medley (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots), some sliced olives, and a vegan mustard dressing that I found at a local store.

Recent find :) smells yummy, can't wait to try it!

Chopped up the onions nice and small with my Pampered Chef chopper.

These onions made my eyes burn a lot! but that just means they're nice and flavorful!! 

Also used my Pampered Chef chopper to cut the veggies up a little more than they already were. I wanted nice, small pieces to mix in with everything else.

To the veggies and onions, I added the chopped up peppers. I like a lot of color so I used yellow, orange, red and green peppers in this one. They all have different vitamins and good stuff in them so I like to just throw them all in!! :)

Add some of the dressing on top, mix it all together, and let it sit in order for all the flavors to combine and get all good and yummy together.

 By now the noodles should be done, they only need to cook for about 15 minutes in boiling water. I put all the veggies in to a bigger bowl and then put the hot  noodles on top (after draining of course) so that the heat would steam the veggies just a little bit. I still wanted them nice and crunchy but not super hard. Then I added a little more dressing on top and a drizzle of oil to help the noodles not clump.

Add the olives and mix it all up!!! It turned out pretty yummy. As is, it's not super flavorful actually but I think that's just something I need to play with - adding spices, garlic, etc. to taste. Next time!

As I said in my last post, I love social events! One type of event that is always particularly close to my heart is baby showers. A friend of mine here in EP had a baby last month, and before she popped I really wanted her to have a fun baby shower so I just went ahead and hosted!! It was right after the other event I had at my house, which was nice on one hand because everything was clean already :) but, on the other hand, I didn't want to make all that food again! So, to save time and my sanity, I had a friend of mine do some of the catering for the event. She's just started up her business here in EP so I wanted to kind of help her out and she was also helping me out a lot in return.

I did the decorations :)

She had a girl so the colors for the room, and therefore the shower, 

were bright pink and green.

This was the catering!! An assortment of sandwiches and also chicken skewers.

The amazing cupcakes that were catered.

Cute decorations the caterer added to the table to match the colors and to be more festive.

The full display of the catered food, cupcakes, chocolate strawberries, and drinks :)

Any chance to spoil a momma-to-be and get a bunch of ladies together - I'm all for it!! It was a good time with great people and yummy food.

I know I have not posted in a very long time and that is about to change!! My goal for this week is to try at least three new recipes and blog about them. Starting tomorrow!!

Today, I'd like to post a few pics from events I've done lately. I love being crafty and creative with social events. Anything from the invitations, to name tags, to food labels - I love it! Two months ago I hosted a social event at my house for a bunch of other officers' wives. I love playing board games, so I decided that the night would have a 'game night' theme. Once that was decided, I really ran with it!

When people arrived, the first thing they saw was the wreath
 :) This was particularly fun!

Then as they walked in the door this was straight ahead! 

I found the metal cards at Hobby Lobby. Best store ever!!

Random cards strung up together along the stairs, just for something extra :)

The food display!! Following are a few close ups...

I had a game name for everything. The veggies are The Wheel of Fortune and Good Health. On both sides are Jenga Veggie Sticks. Also, Phase 10 Ingredient Pasta Salad and Hit Me Again Chex Mix.

Everyone left with at least $100,000 ;)

Dominoes Brownies!! Saw these on pinterest and just had to try it! I was not going to go through and do each one so I just did the ones on top of the plate. They're also G-Free :)

Colonel Mustard Honey Mustard Chicken Skewers.

Miss Scarlet Red Hot Salsa and Mr Green's Guacamole. I loved these pieces from Clue Jr and they worked perfectly for the food labels!! Also really inspired me with naming the items.

Checkers Sandwiches! Another pinterest inspiration! 

I also had Boggle Your Mind Punch, which was actually wine (hence the boggling of the mind), sprite, and fruit mixture. A variety of other drinks were also available but they weren't so creative, just sodas and water, so they didn't warrant a photo :D Overall, the night was a huge success!! I was really happy with everything and was glad that everyone had a good time!

So it seems that being sick makes all my resolve just fly out the window... along with sleep and happiness. Or maybe it's the other way around, since I'm not sleeping and am generally miserable, I decide to sooth myself with food. I've known for quite some time that I'm an emotional eater - I eat because of and to 'fix' my emotions. If I'm particularly down, then I eat wonderful foods that will poor endorphins into my brain. On the other hand, if I'm happy and content, then there is nothing to fix so I stick with my 'good foods' and all is well.

This past week I have been fighting with the mother of all colds. It started late Saturday night and continued to consume my body for the next six days. Today is officially day 7 of "Cold-pocolypse 2012" and I think it is just about over. Unfortunately I have a lot of damage to repair. Not only the obvious damage, such as the nasty, red, rough skin all around my nose from blowing my nose constantly for a week.... but also the damage I've done to my body with the comfort foods I so needlessly ingested. Although, I say 'needless' now, but at the time I sure as heck felt they were necessary. Bread, ice cream, cheese, creamers, ice cream, coffee... it is all adding up. My tummy no longer looks or feels quite as good as it did a week ago.

Plus! To top it all off, I was just getting back to exercising. Another fact I've known for quite some time about my body is that my weight will not go down unless I exercise religiously (barring, of course, extreme starvation and such). So, even when I stick to my guns and completely cut out wheat, dairy, meat, and all animal products, my weight stays about the same... It's taken me about three weeks to lose about 5 pounds, and due to this past week alone I'm pretty sure it's all back on :(

So it is back on! Oh yes, IT'S ON! It's on like Donkey Kong... ok maybe I shouldn't have gone there but I did! I'm back on track! I slipped up already this morning but I'm back and with stronger resolve (perhaps due to a little more sleep last night)! One of the main reasons for my 'slip' this morning was the lack of available options. I'm realizing just how important it is to plan ahead, have a fully and appropriately stocked refrigerator, and to eat regularly in order to avoid hitting the starving/hangry mode. I'm stocking the fridge and getting back on track. I'm even considering a three day juice cleanse!! Which I will most definitely chronicle here in all it's amazing and probably gross details.

Challenge of the day: finding vegan choices at a restaurant. It is a lot more difficult than I had thought. I knew it would be hard but usually restaurants really offer options to cater to as many people as possible. The funky thing about vegan food, is that it's more than just no meat, it is no animal products what so ever - no eggs, cheese, cream, milk, etc.

As I've said before, I'm not 100% vegan yet. As made quite evident by my splurge of an iced espresso with a splash of half and half... yes milk is most definitely and obviously an animal product. I'm still sticking with 100% vegetarian but having some difficulties with the vegan part.

So back to the challenge of restaurants... Met a couple friends for lunch at a Sushi place, which is one of the kinds of places I think of a stereotypical restaurant choice for vegetarians, since there are so many options. But, I hate seafood, I hate seaweed, and therefore I can't stand sushi :D Hench my predicament.... Basically for lunch I had edemame!! Also I enjoyed a plate of veggies tempura which probably doesn't exactly fit in with my idea of 'whole foods' since it is friend... or something. To be honest I'm not entirely sure what tempura really is, but I can tell you it is really good! :) I love it!! But my point is, those two items are the best thing I can find on the menu that fit with my general diet restrictions and tastes... TWO ITEMS?!?! From an entire menu, I have found two items. Technically they do have vegetarian fried rice but I'm also not sure what all goes in to that or goes in to making that so I'm not sure if it's truly vegan.

Overall, The Sushi Place (at Freedom Crossing) is a great place and I love the atmosphere. I admit I really do love my two options, but at the same time I'm a bit bummed I only have two options. It is a challenge, but also one I'm going to rise to! I now feel the need to branch out of my comfort zone and really go out in to the town to find restaurants that have options that I can actually eat! Any suggestions?? :)

8:15pm and sitting down to dinner :) Funny thing is, I just had a conversation earlier today about how I don't really cook while the hubby is out of town. Guess I'm making myself a liar! This is the second time I've cooked a fun, big meal for just me!! This one is sort of a repeat. I've made it before but decided to give it another go. I saw it on pinterest and decided to give it another go. Pretty glad I did :) here is where you can find the original pin-worthy recipe, it is from the Eat Clean Diet website. That Tosca is a great woman!

Anyways... on to the good stuff. The food!! Cauliflower is the main staple of this recipe and adds some tofu to keep the protein content high. I used a base of quinoa instead of the bulgur wheat that the recipe calls for. Still not sure I really know what bulgur wheat even is...

I already had some left over quinoa from my other cooking frenzy so I jumped straight to sauteing the onion and garlic. Added to that veggie broth, chopped up cauliflower, cut up firm tofu, some raisins (the recipe calls for golden raisins but I didn't have any... I think the golden would be better but even the regular ones add a pop of sweetness to cut through the spices). Then I just tossed in the spices, which included goodness such as curry powder, coriander, cumin, paprika, cayenne, salt, and pepper. I probably should have measured, because I kept having to add more and more when I would taste test it because it didn't have enough kick IMO :) As a point of advice, if you plan ahead for this meal I'd recommend marinating or rubbing the tofu with something in advance so it has a little more flavor. But it also helps balance out all the spices. Once it's all tossed together, boil, then simmer so all the flavors meld together and get super duper yummmmmmy. :)

As I said, I still had left over quinoa so I just nuked a little bit. Then I cut up a bunch of cilantro to garnish and now my kitchen smells so good :) I love cilantro!

Now just put it all together and what do you get?!?! A wonderful, vegan, healthy, and protein rich dinner!!! Dig in!! :) Don't mind if I do....