Breakfast.

I, like most other people my age, grew up with the constant "breakfast is the most important meal of the day"... and like most people, I more or less ignored that advice. 

Can you blame me for valuing what precious little sleep I get over spending time cooking in the mornings? Most days as a teenager I'd be content to just grab a piece of fruit on my way out the door... or absurd amounts of coffee once I got to HUB at the U of A, occasionally with a scone for a bit of substance (so THAT's how I dropped fifteen pounds when I was at the U. I miss that body.) And to be totally honest, I'm still not 100% sold on breakfast, and will in all likelihood probably be living off of caffeine when I'm back in school at the end of August. 

But over the past few weeks, I've been making more of a conscious effort to force myself to eat in the mornings, whether I want to or not. Some days it's a losing battle, but some days (like today) I completely rock it. 

Any of my Card cousins who read this will laugh and nod knowingly, but... Well, Grandma and Aunt Marge and the aunties all had it right with the "make sure you have some protein!!"... I've found that the mornings where I have eggs for breakfast tend to be the days where I'm less in need of snacking during the day. Let's take today's breakfast for example! 

My grandma is actually the one who
introduced me to Peabutter, but I was
pleasantly surprised to find that Rory
eats it as well!

I've come to start with a basic framework (eggs and toast) and occasionally spice it up a little bit. 

Today, I put some NoNuts Golden Peabutter on my toast.Yep, I'm one of those poor unfortunate souls with a nut allergy. It hasn't really ever affected me much (aside from last December, when I had an allergic reaction and landed myself in the hospital in anaphylactic shock and the mother of all asthma attacks... That was minorly terrifying...), although it definitely has limited some of my food choices, especially since all the nuts that are really good for you are the ones that would kill me in a matter of minutes.

A lot of the nut-free peanut butter substitutes out there are heavily soy based, which is something that I do my best to avoid because I consider soy to be something best avoided.

I'm getting better at this!

Despite the fact that my mom (inadvertently) sabotaged me yesterday by sending me a generous serving of homemade bread pudding which was so good that I honestly could. not. resist. (My willpower is nonexistent with most of my mom's food, she's a far better cook than I ever will be...), I think I did alright.

I mean, by all accounts my breakfast was probably way too small (210 calories-ish?), but if I eat too much first thing in the morning it makes me quite sick.

That being said, my lunch was pretty balanced (quinoa + kale salad, yummm) and I had the last of the borscht we had in the fridge for dinner-- we'd picked it up at the farmers' market on Saturday, I think I'm going to have to either buy a bunch more and/or learn how to make it myself because it's quite good.

My problem yesterday was my snacking. Bread pudding in the midafternoon, and then two servings of rainbow sherbet in the evening... I can tell that my body already isn't doing well with that much sugar, I was so sluggish and slow last night and had some pretty bizarre dreams.

But on the other hand, I know that being too strict with what I'm eating will just lead to me binging on all the worst foods possible. I'm still trying to find that healthy balance.

We went to the grocery store last night after doing some errands, and (this is me being super proud of myself) we bought mostly produce! Rory picked up some peanut butter (which I don't eat and never have, hooray for allergies) and some cinnamon spread (which I also won't eat, I'm just not a fan) and then some milk.

Sassy Water. Image from here.

Even better, we bought the first nectarines of the year! I'm so stoked. It's definitely early in the season for nectarines, though, because they are teenytiny and $6.50/lb. Yikes. Later in the summer they'll be around $2-3/lb and absolutely MASSIVE. Nonetheless, nectarines make me happy and have improved my mood considerably. Heck, it's still raining out today and I'm in a good mood because I'm sitting at my desk at the clinic munching on an apple and have even more fruit waiting for me at home.  And veggies. Mmmm.

So even though I overslept by more than half an hour this morning (and consequently I didn't really brush my hair orrrr put on any makeup and as such look like a total slob), I'm doing okay. I even took the time to make a modified version of my friend Sabrina's "sassy water" before I left, by adding lemon juice and cucumber to my water bottle... I think I may have overdone it on the lemon juice, though, and I didn't have any ginger to grate and add, and totally forgot about the mint.. (sips water)... yup, definitely overdid it on the lemon juice.

All things considered, though, today is looking pretty good so far. And yes, I do realize that I probably sound overwhelmingly perky. =D

self-evaluation.

This weekend, food-and-exercise-wise, was... well, "not great" is an understatement but "horrible" is blowing it out of proportion. Somewhere in between. I have a lot harder time staying focused on weekends, it would seem... and I'm really prone to boredom eating.

I think my main problem right now is sodium. I crave it constantly... which is an uncomfortable feeling to say the least, especially since most of my go-to sodium snacks (Premium Plus saltine crackers, anyone?) are simple-carb heavy and just altogether nutritionally... yeah. Not good at all, especially since I can polish off an entire sleeve of saltines in one day, easily.

Fighting the sodium addiction is not as easy as
I'd like it to be.
(image from here.)

Remedying that, however, isn't as easy as I wish it were. I'm trying to fill that "omg need salt nowww" void with fresh veggies and fruit-- it's almost nectarine season! yay!-- but it isn't working quite the way I was hoping it would. I need more substance, as it were.

I took the time yesterday to cook up a big batch of quinoa, hopefully enough to last me the week, plus some kale stir-fry (kale, red and yellow peppers, a white onion, garlic and a half cup of hemp seeds). Nutritionally speaking, it's great, and actually really filling. It tastes quite good, too, despite what my dad thinks.

All things considered, I should be set for the week lunch-wise. Rory's still at home so I've asked him to go to the grocery store today and pick up some produce for me-- fruit, veggies, spaghetti squash-- so that I can do some cooking + prep work while I still have the motivation to (ha). If the food is in my fridge, I'll eat it.

I noticed yesterday that I haven't been feeling quite as bloated and gross as I had been during the week, too. Hopefully that's a sign that either a) I have good targets as far as calorie + nutrient intake go, and/or b) I've lost a bit of weight already. Here's to it being both of the above.

I'm so glad that it's nearly summer. It's drizzly and grey today, but it was so nice over the weekend and I'm in a far better mood than I usually am on Monday/Tuesday mornings.

May Long.

I just knew that, in one way or another, the long weekend would help to make up for the ridiculousness and altogether total frustration that was last week.

Well, most parts of the weekend, anyways. There have been a couple sad/worrysome things happen (mostly yesterday)-- one of my friends is missing (deliberately on her part) and I'm incredibly worried about her, but am very limited in what I can do because I don't know her address. She has a history of depression and I think she may have taken matters into her own hands. Friends, please send some good thoughts into the universe for her. Sigh.  

next-day edity update: I got word last night that my friend who was AWOL is now safe and is being taken care of. I'm still a wee bit worried about her but I'm glad that she's getting the help that she needs. Continued prayers/good thoughts into the universe are always welcome, though!

Up until yesterday, my weekend had been pretty quiet. We went out for dinner with Rory's parents on Friday night (Sawmill, so good.) but other than that we've mostly been lounging around at home. Saturday morning we went to the City Centre Market since they're back in the outdoor market setting now. So nice to be back at the market on Saturdays (yep, I willingly get up at 8:30 or 9:00 AM on Saturdays to walk out there!), but since it's just mid-May, there isn't much in terms of produce yet... mostly apples and pears. Which is alright, but I'm still looking forward to the peak of BC fruit season... cherries and nectarines and peaches are the best part of summer for me, fruit-wise. Rainier cherries are my favourite-- not just for the flavour (so sweet but just tart enough that it's not overwhelming), but also because they don't stain your hands the way other varieties do.

(from The Produce Blog. This picture has me drooling.)

Since we didn't really have much cash on us, we didn't buy much... some cake bites, a container of my favourite Tzatziki, and a liter of borscht for Rory-- he just had a bowl of it and shared some with me, it's delicious but quite Americanized! I think that the next time I plan to go out there, I'll do a preorder for some bison smokies from Kathryn's parents-- I was hoping to buy some Saturday, but Dan hadn't brought any out with him.

Preorder means that I'll be able to get a good dozen or so for Rory, anyways. =)