Chocolate cake should be its own food group.

Good news! I got to hang out with both of the guys I had mentioned yesterday. And I'm so relieved over knowing that my friend is not upset and my boyfriend is still my boyfriend! Seriously, how am I so this lucky as to be in a relationship with him?! I honestly feel like I don't deserve him--like I'm not good enough for him--but he assures me he feels the same way, so it's working out well. :)

And thank you for your sweet comments! Reading them really helped me to be reassured that it would work out and it IS working out, so that's amazing!

Breakfast today was similar to yesterday:



1/2 C oats
1/3 C pumpkin
1 fig
sprinkling of carob chips and soy nuts
tiny bit of MixMyGranola (mostly for the chia seeds)
1/2 C cottage cheese

About half way through the bowl, I realized that I would still be hungry after I finished it, so I bulked it up with some more cottage cheese and a spoon of PB.


I had an interesting day food-wise yesterday. I was honestly fairly upset all day so I was making myself eat. Thankfully I had a lunch date with a friend, so we ate at a local conservatory's cafe. They had fresh healthy food and it was really INCREDIBLE! (Plus, we got to eat outside in reasonably warm weather!)

I had their citrus salmon salad with orange sesame dressing on the side (I used about 1/2 the dressing; it was tasty but I have no idea if it was full fat or whatever. I don't mind one way or another though.) My salad came with a slice of cheesy bread (fairly oily, but good) and had a bunch of pine nuts and orange slices over top of fancy mixed greens, cucumbers and tomatoes. Yum! And then my friend and I split a piece of French Raspberry Chocolate Cake!! Holy YUM!! This was way beyond incredible! The frosting was almost as rich as the inside of truffles! And the dark chocolate-y goodness just surpassed description! I wish I had pictures of the salad and the cake for you all, because they were beautiful and so, so good!

Anyway, I had that lunch late, around 3, so I went straight to teach from 4-6:30pm and play a religious service from 6:30-8pm. After the service, there's always a reception and I snagged this PB brownie:

You all know that I feel really strongly about having NO foods off limits and I want to enjoy all things, just having an emphasis on nutritious foods. I didn't feel too bad eating this because I essentially didn't have dinner. I ate the brownie and didn't feel hungry, so instead I went out with my friend (the non-boyfriend guy) and I had two Magic Hat #9 beers and later on with my boyfriend I had a Yuengling Black and Tan. OK, yes, I know that my food yesterday was heavy on the "social" side of things...and I'm just fine with that. I won't do that all the time (don't worry, the beers were spread out over about 4 hours) but I don't see anything wrong with it and I'm so grateful to be at a point in my life where I can enjoy food and drinks with friends and not still be letting ED control me and make me second guess myself. I did a little bit of exercise yesterday which felt good. I just ran two miles at my gym and at night I did a bunch of push ups. (30ish? Not all at once though.)

There are a few giveaways going on in blogland:

Don't forget to enter my PB Loco and bars giveaway.

Iowa Girl Eats is having a giveaway of her favorite products, including Barney Butter (!) here.

Live, Laugh, Lyss is giving away a bunch of delicious bars here.

Erika at Peace and Peanut butter is giving away some PB2 samples, a Gnu bar, and a freedom beads bracelet here.

AnAppleADay is giving away salsas and sauces here.

I just designed my signature to end my posts with. I hope you all like it!

BLAB: Relationships vs. friendships

Good morning! I'm sorry for not posting yesterday, but I've read all your comments and I really love getting them! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment! :)

The title of this post will be explained. But just to remind you, I'll be posting "BLAB" entries occasionally which stands for "BLogging ABout" and they'll just be about things I want to talk about on here.

I woke up starving this morning, because I had a somewhat upsetting night yesterday and I ate dinner, but I was really hungry by 10pm, and didn't eat anything (BAD, I know!) and was up until 2am, plus I tossed and turned all night. I try to always sound happy on this blog, and I really am, I am still happy, even with this incident...but here goes. Sorry to even have to mention it, but I really want to blog about it and I'd love your feedback if you'd like to leave it.

I am INCREDIBLY blessed to have my boyfriend. But when we were at the bar yesterday, my up-to-this-point best friend, who is a single guy, was also there. We have barely been hanging out at all recently, especially considering that we've been super close for about 2 years, hanging out about 4 days a week together. This friend of mine is practically family and we've always been there for each other, as we both moved across the country from our families, (we met here) and were both music majors at the same school. He's been there for me when no one else was. He's stayed up all night with me to help me pull all-nighters to finish graduate class work. He can make me laugh more than anyone and knows me better than anyone else on this side of the country! We read each other's minds scarily accurately. We've been through a lot of the same things, with us both being music majors. My boyfriend is amazing, but I've known this other guy for a lot longer and I care about both of them on a very deep level. Trust me; NO part of me wants a relationship with any guy other than my boyfriend, and I know that this other friend would NOT be a good person to date. But it's been really hard for me especially yesterday because my "best friend" (til now) saw me spending time with my boyfriend and he is jealous and upset. And I DON'T WANT THIS. I don't want ANY of my friendships, especially not that close of one, to be harmed by my relationship. In some ways, I know our friendship would have to change, but it honestly hurts to see him just walk out of the bar and half-heartedly wave good-bye to me. It hurts to send him a "sorry we didn't get to hang out much" text which I know he got and have him not respond at all.

It just hurts.

I'm going to try and smooth things over with him, but I've been crying every time I think about it and I honestly don't cry that much. It's also undoubtedly why I tossed and turned all night. I never have problems sleeping, but I did tonight! :(

By the way, my boyfriend is the kind of AMAZING guy who saw that I was upset at the bar and just held me and comforted me in his car as I cried, reassuring me that it's OK to feel this way, and it's OK to cry, and he still trusts me and knows that I don't want a relationship with anyone else, but understands how much is hurts to lose, or almost lose, a close friendship. I am truly blessed, and I honestly feel selfish for being this upset over another guy. It's just hard right now.

So my large breakfast was this bowl of oatmeal:

1/2 C oats
1/3 C pumpkin
1 TB ground flax
1 chopped fig
sprinkling carob chips
sprinkling soy nuts
1/3 C cottage cheese
3 slices of peaches in water (finished the jar)

No PB or other nut butter. It just didn't sound good.


I had a great day spent with my boyfriend in the morning. First I went out for a 20 minute run/walk. Then we went to a photography exhibit here in town and then walked around downtown enjoying the outdoors and getting coffee and lunch! (We probably walked for a good hour or more!) We went to a hot dog shop for lunch and I enjoyed two regular hot dogs on white buns with absolutely no second thoughts whatsoever. They were so delicious! It was 80 degrees and sunny and I had a lovely time! I taught violin in the evening from 4:30-8:15 (plus an hour drive each way) and went out with friends afterwards, including my boyfriend, to a local bar where I had an Amstel light.

Tuesday's food recap:

I cut up and ate an entire mango:


And had a lovely bowl of breakfast cereal:


In the afternoon I snacked on 1/2 a PB and jelly sandwich, plus 1/2 a Clif Z brownie bar plus a banana. No pictures, because everyone was home. But I made a simple but yummy dinner of a whole PB and jelly sandwich plus a Superfood Odwalla bar.



Monday was a great, but interesting, day! After racquetball and lunch we had some excitement in the neighborhood. (This isn't the great part). Basically one of my neighbors got in a fight with his ex-girlfriend about whether he had cheated on her. It was almost violent (I typed violin!) and really sad, scary and awful. The cops ended up coming, with 4 police cars, and they had to handcuff the guy because after they ran his background check it turned out that he was an unregistered sex offender! Umm, makes me really comfortable about where I'm living. And it's weird, because I've talked to him (and his roommates) several times and they seemed really nice to me. But he won't be coming back to live with them, so I feel a little better. I ended up texting my boyfriend and telling him what a huge blessing he is to me, and how I was just reminded of that after hearing that couple's fight!

But my evening was great. I hung out with a single male friend (different from the one mentioned above). I had told my boyfriend and he said he appreciated me telling him, but I didn't always HAVE to tell him and either way he was perfectly OK with it. This is good because it would be a problem if he didn't want me hanging out with my male friends. He trusts me and I trust him; I had dinner with this guy and gave him three of my CDs that we finished recording. So really it was like a business dinner. :) We got Chinese food, and I took a picture of my leftovers to show you the basic idea. I picked out all the veggies though, so add a bunch of broccoli and carrots to my meal to see my Monday night dinner:


The entrees were Chicken with Veggies (on the left) and General Tso's (on the right):


We also ended up talking and walking for one and a half hours, so that was another great workout!

I also wanted to show you some pictures of the incredible desserts I consumed over the weekend at games night and on Sunday (and OK, Monday too! Yummers!)

Lemon bars: (just had one of these on Monday)


Chocolate mint brownie bites and coconut chocolate blondie bites:

One of about five I had on Monday:

This was in my camera so I must have snacked on it at some point:


These were growing in my backyard and I found them beautiful:


I'm off to the gym then to get lunch with a friend around 2pm and teach and play from 4-8pm tonight.

Happy Hump Day!

Weekend catch up!

Wow, it's Monday afternoon and my weekend flew by! I'd like to give you all the recap because I had a FANTASTIC couple of days!! :)

I had a delicious bowl of three kinds of cereal for breakfast today topped with Kefir. It had puffed Kamut, Abundance cereal, and MixMyGranola! Totally delicious, especially because I woke up pretty hungry. I played racquetball at 11am (woke up at 9:30, much needed!) so I tried to go slightly lower fat, since it takes longer to digest.


We played racquetball for about 70 minutes plus I did a 16 minute fairly intense Expresso bike ride. I feel so great right now! :)

It's a beautiful 80 degree day here, so I got home and was pretty hungry. I wanted something cold, so I had leftover barley, veggies and tofu, plus cold green beans and leeks. (I cooked these over the weekend, see below).


And I had a small bowl of cereal too.


Starting with Saturday morning, I got up and taught from 10-1pm, getting home around 2pm. I made a bowl of oatmeal, but there's no picture of that because of the weekend and the roomies were around. In the car ride home I had this ThinkThin bar:


I actually don't like white chocolate, but this is my favorite flavor of these bars. The other ones are all a little grainy and not great textures. It took me a while though to buy this flavor, but I'm glad I did.

While teaching I mixed this into a packet of water. I do really like these energy drinks, and they're great to have in my purse. (I had another one of these today after working out).


I skipped a workout on Saturday because I needed a quick nap and then I ended up cooking a bunch of veggies that needed to be made because they spoiled. I boiled green beans and leeks (inspired by Mi at wholefoodswholeme) and sauteed a huge pan of a white onion, purple cabbage and red kale. Plus I threw in some tofu and hot sauce! Yum!

On the drive up to the orchestra concert I drank this:

I love these drinks. I don't drink much diet soda and I try not to drink TOO many low calorie drinks with artificial ingredients, but I think they are absolutely fine once in a while and I really enjoy them! :)

The concert went well, minus a blackout in the auditorium during the middle of a piece! Luckily it was right at the end of the 3rd movement of a piece, so we had to stop for a while while they got the lights back on! After the concert there was a free reception, so I snagged this goodie plate.


I'm not sure what it all was, but basically:

-slice of toast with cream cheese spread (the one with the olive)
-3 bites of meat with mustard (ham + turkey)
-spinach pie (greasy, but so yummy!)
-the bite right in the middle is some sort of salmon-y thing
-I still have no idea what the rolled fried thing or the thing at 7pm (between the spinach pie and the toast) are. They were delicious though! :)

I came home around 11pm to a house full of guests for game night. They had already started playing but it was SOOO much fun to join them! Plus we had so many snacks and desserts set out! OMG, I had:

• 3 bite sized coconut chocolate chip blondies
• 2 mint chocolate bite sized brownies
• 1 "butter bar" (don't know what's in it, but definitely lots of calories; luckily it was only about one square inch!)
• 1/2 a large chocolate PB rice krispie bar (this was incredible)
• one tiny bite of a moist fruity brownie
• several hazelnut Nut Thin chips
• 2 glasses of Shiraz red wine
  

The weird thing is that I woke up today and my body fat %age according to my scale is down 1%, which I had sort of guessed because I feel leaner...somehow. I know it could totally just be the time of the month or something but I'm not sure. I have been trying to stress the working out, and I've been enjoying working out (definitely NOT to a DE amount of working out as evidenced by the fact that I skipped two days recently). Yes, I had a bunch of desserts, but I was also running around quite a bit and I wasn't eating meals as substantial as they normally are.

In other words, I feel like it was eating RIGHT for maximally enjoying life. By that I mean that I enjoyed sweets totally guilt free with my body naturally compensating for the extra calories with feeling less hungry for other food. I don't want to do this all the time, as I want to give my body nutrient rich foods. But it was good to be reminded that I don't have to eat super healthy all the time and it's going to be just fine. My body will take care of me, which is an amazing gift we have! After my ED year, I was still eating disorderdly for about another 3-4 years. I was eating way too little (~1200 cals) and exercising an hour a day or more. (I had left treatment after reaching a weight probably a bit low for me and I wasn't completely recovered). I had about a 12% body fat and wondered why my periods weren't coming back. Well, DUH! I was still mentally unwell and I was constantly thinking about food because of my still undernourishment levels. I would engage in other unhealthy behaviors and binge occasionally when I got too hungry. All the while I was keeping up the "I'm recovered" image. Umm, no not really Lisa, but nice try. So anyway, eventually I decided that I couldn't keep doing that my whole life. I couldn't keep turning down social events because of unhealthy food being the only option. I couldn't keep playing the violin well and having energy on the amount of food I was eating. I didn't want to try and sustain it. Exercise was literally painful. I had a HUGE list of foods that I wouldn't allow myself to eat and my obsession with healthy eating was...exactly that: an obsession.

And I got tired of living that way.

I decided that I didn't want to do that anymore. I came to grad school and decided it was time to actually get rid of the DE. I conscientiously chose to eat foods that I was scared of. I accepted social event invitations. I upped my calories. And I DID gain weight. Quite a bit of weight in fact. But the beautiful part is that eventually my body stopped gaining weight because it knew that it was going to be starved anymore. It settled where it needs to be, which is about 10 pounds more than my pre-ED weight. My periods are only now (about 5 years later) starting to come back. They're still very irregular and some months I don't get them at all. I still have post-prandial hypoglycemia on occasion which is an after effect (in some cases) of anorexia. I am anemic (which I'm not sure if it's ED related or genetic, or both perhaps). But the fact of the matter is that I feel strong and healthy. I have the energy I need to be FULLY engaged in life. I can give my full attention to my violin students and devote my whole heart to helping and loving people. I am discovering new hobbies even now and am greatly enjoying this beautiful life. And I wouldn't trade these things for the world.

Anyway, those are just a few of my thoughts on EDs and stuff. I feel really strongly about fighting EDs, in case it wasn't quite clear. ;-)

Alrighty, this is going to be a long post. Oh well, I need to finish telling you about my awesome weekend! :) My boyfriend came over for games night and we all had a great time. Around 2am when everyone was going home, he asked me if I wanted to go check out a local event happening that had artwork by local artists on disply from 6pm on Saturday through 2pm on Sunday. So all night, in other words. So we went down there from 2-4am and I slept from 4:30-5:30am. Yes, ONE HOUR! Because we had to be up for him to perform at that same art event. I met him at his house at 6am and we had a wonderful morning listening to local musicians and talking with a lot of his friends. He was so sweet; he brought me coffee and two small Jimmy D sausage breakfast sandwiches (maybe 300 calories each? So 600 calories? I really have no idea). They were quite good! Later in the morning, around 9:30am I had this amazing FREE cookie:

We went to church together and I came home and taught two violin lessons. At this point I was crashing hard from the caffeine high and lack of sleep so I took a nap for 45 minutes. Then I woke up, still felt awful so I had dinner of more cabbage, barley and tofu. Plus several more desserts leftover from the games night. About 5 bite sized coconut blondies. :) I had a rehearsal Sunday night from 7-9:30 plus an hour drive each way, so my day was pretty much over when I got home because I was exhausted. I felt much better today after sleeping for 8 hours. Yay!

Here are some back pictures from Friday afternoon/evening.

I made this "sandwich" with this sausage:


I put a slice of cheese on this bread:


Added the sausage and folded it over.


For a protein packed snack, I love PB on uncooked tofu.


Self-explanatory:

Boring but tasty carrots. I believe these were eaten on my way to rehearsal.


I'm going to go outside and enjoy this amazing weather! :)

I'm a lucky girl!!

I am such a lucky girl! I am now dating the most incredible man! He is so thoughtful, caring, respectful of me and others, and a really really great friend! He's incredibly intelligent and has a great sense of humor! We spend a lot of time laughing together! He's the kind of guy that looks forward to making me breakfast (despite me assuring him that he did NOT have to do that, but I'd certainly appreciate it if he did). I've mentioned on my blog that I'm a Christian; he is too (which is important to me), and we've actually had some really great conversations about our faith and we've spent time praying together, both for our relationship and for other prayer requests. We are taking it slowly, and actually neither of us expected to become anything other than friends this soon, but like he said, "The best friends turn into the best relationships."

I've actually NEVER had a boyfriend before. (I'm in my early 20s). I was completely OK with that, as I was always very focused on the violin and my education. (Went to college at 16, graduated at 19, grad school right after when I was 20, etc. and I spent the better part of my teenage years practicing 3-7 hours a day. None of which I regret and I actually feel incredibly privileged to have done). But back to the point, which is that I'm honored that he is my first relationship.

I can't put up a full post right now because my roommate's here. I promise I will soon though, and I promise I have good foodie pictures for you. I'm also sorry about my lack of commenting on your blogs! I've been spending a fair amount of time with my now boyfriend and it's been great. I've been reading as many of your blogs as I can though, and I will try to comment soon!

Well, I got 3 hours of sleep (4:30-7:30am) and taught all morning so I just took a quick nap and I'm playing a (small, community) symphony orchestra concert tonight! So have a FANTASTIC Saturday and I'll see you all again very soon!

Return of the pumpkin!

To my bowl of oats that is. I went grocery shopping AGAIN yesterday. I do this way too often. But I needed a few things, which turned into $40. (*Insert smirk here*) But one of the things I got was canned pumpkin which I am so excited to have for my breakfasts. It bulks up oatmeal and adds a serving of veggies to breakfast! :)

1/2 C oats
1/3 cup pumpkin
2 tsp flax
2 tsp noni juice
1 chopped fig (the white-ish kind from WF; I like these way better than the dark figs)
2 chopped strawberries
sprinkling of carob chips


I topped it with my usual 1/2 cottage cheese and a small spoon of PB.


I had a fantastic day yesterday! It started with a great workout. I did 44 minutes of running and walking on the treadmill. It was probably about 25 minutes of actual running and the rest walking. It said I burned 415 calories, and I usually enter a weight about 10 pounds less to offset the inaccurately high numbers it gives. Whatever; it felt good. Then I returned home to find the Mix My Granola that I won from Jenna's giveaway.


Of course I had to try some right away! It's seriously delicious!!!

I thought this piece of dried strawberry was particularly cute! :)

For the fastest lunch ever (I seriously had about 8 minutes to prepare, heat and eat this!) I made this Indian entree with one whole zucchini chopped into it:

It said there are two servings in it, but they would have been tiny servings, so really there was only one, 200 calorie, serving! :)


Then I taught two violin lessons and I did the grocery shopping I mentioned. I stopped at WF and got a bunch of good stuff. Here's the produce:

• red chard
• one onion
• 3 organic gala apples
• green beans on sale ($1/lb!)
• strawberries

I also bought (but could takes pictures of):

-Cheddar Nut Thins
-Cottage cheese
-Can of pumpkin
-2 Odwalla bars ($1 each, to be chopped up on oatmeal!)
-5 figs (also to be oatmeal toppings)
-skim Kefir (I like it and I had a coupon!)
-1 ThinkBeautiful bar (aka, ThinkThin--but that's a terrible name!)
-1 Balance bar (I had coupons for all the bars, making them around $1 each)
-this Green Kombucha as a special treat! I LOVE them, but they're over $3 each which is obscenely expensive! Even on sale it was $3 even, but I just really wanted it. Ugh, Please bring the price down, oh highly esteemed Kombucha-making company!

I also ate an apple in my car on the way home.


Then I went to adult gymnastics!! So exciting! I got my aerial cartwheel back! And I connected roundoff back tuck on trampoline, back layouts on tramp, and was feeling good with my front handsprings on floor. I also found out that I can do this one really cool "breakdancing" pose where I'm on my hands and both knees are resting on my right elbow, feet off the ground. I had an awesome time! That was about 1 hour and 10 minutes, and it was another good workout!

I came home and was pretty hungry so I made this shake:

I'm not going to lie. I really didn't like this AT ALL. It's pretty gross, actually! Sorry BioChem people. I WANTED to like it! I REALLY TRULY did. And I still drank it all because of the amazing nutritional information. But it honestly tasted HORRIBLE. I'm sorry, but I just cant recommend it. But I did get a crap ton of amazing nutrients! :)

I had some Cheddar Nut Thins with it to help offset the shake's taste.


I was still hungry so I made a delicious bowl of Kefir and MixMyGranola! Yummm! I threw some puffed Kamut in to give it more volume.


I went out to a bar VERY close to my house with my friend--yes, him--and we talked for another 2 hours. During which time I sipped two large vodka and cranberries. I wonder if I'd lose weight if I stopped drinking? But really now, what fun would that be? Besides, cranberry juice has lots of vitamin C and vodka is VEGAN!! Hahaha!

P.S. Peanut Butter and Jenny is giving away some amazing snacks!

Happy Friday everyone!!!