Positive Thinking

On Monday I'm starting a 100% HARDCORE paleo challenge for the 30 days leading up to Thanksgiving. Coach Em intentionally scheduled it to coincide with Halloween. I'm trying to keep a positive outlook about it; seeing it as another way to strengthen myself physically and mentally, and potentially change my life. I don't want to deafet myself before I even begin with negative thoughts. But at the same time, I don't want to discount or ignore how difficult it will be, for me more so than many of the other gym members taking part. I'm trying to find a balance between acknowledging those feelings and preparing for that part of the battle (know thy enemy), without dweling on them. I'm going to try to keep a food diary on here. Whatever happens, I definitely apreciate any help I can get. Tips and tricks, encouragement, prayer, recipes, anything you have to offer.

It's specifically hard because having been in Alaska all summer, I havent been in the habit of working out. I was trying to continue whie I was up there, but it was pretty much just a major fail. I just got back, haven't even started working out yet, and now I'm adding this ontop of everything.

Here we go...

Who Would Have Thought

I never would have thought I would want to be a model. It's sort of the antithesis of most of my personality. But in the last few years, starting after I saw some of the old torrid ad campaign (circa 2005), I really wanted to get into plus size modeling. I haven't done much of it, and I don't think at this point I'm willing to sacrifice a lot for it (I have other goals I would sacrifice for), but I am more into it than most people might imagine. Here's a few shots from the latest shoot

Skirt and top by Torrid, tights by Lane Bryant, shoes by Guess, accessories by Claire's. And from a different shoot, this isn't really fashion since you can't see my clothes at all (for that matter neither is the second one up there), but i love this shot:

Plus Size/Fat Acceptance?

This may be one of the few posts that ever combines the two topics of this blog. As a big girl with a thing for fashion, I've come across my fair share of sites devoted to so called "fat acceptance" and the resuting backlash against it. Sites such as adipositivity.com say that women (well, people in general, though you can imagine this is aimed at almost exclusively women) should be able to be considered beautiful no matter how large they are. The counter to this is people claiming that if women are allowed to feel beautiful when they are not healthy, they will not be motivated to lose weight.

I sort of see both sizes of the arguement. The probem is that many times, neither side of the arguement differentiates between healthy-big (the size 20 endurance runner [and yes, they do exist]) and obese-big (the size 20 carb-holic who can't walk up a flight of stairs). I know people who fall in the latter category and are completely satisfied with their bodies because of the extreme fat-acceptance movement. I'm not saying if you're overweight you are not allowed to be happy or pretty or satisfied with yourself in general, in fact I really hope you are all of those thing. But everone should always want to be bettering themselves. Being satisfied with an unhealthy body doesn't seem right to me. (For years I did nothing about my unhealthy body, but that doesn't mean I was satisfied with it).

On the other hand, everyone is precious, and everyone has gifts and talents to be appreciated no matter their current struggles. While some people struggle with outward things such as weight, other issues are not so obvious, and trust me, everyone has them. Why should someone who needs to drop 50 lbs be considered any less beautiful than someone who needs to drop 50 grudges?

In the middle of all this is plus size models, many of which are in no way "plus size" at all (size 6 or 8). Logically, these girls should just be "models" and 5'10" 115lb girls should be the unusual ones. There are a lot of times I think I would love to be a pus size model, since I love fashion and photography. But I don't know if I could handle the controversy surrounding the industry.

All I really know, is that this chick is fracking HOT (one of the few truly "plus size" models Tara Lynn in a shoot for French Vogue):

I wonder if she can do muscle ups on those rings...

I just read over this again and I was totally babbling. But I can't figure out how to organzie my thoughts about this topic.

Cookbook :-)

It has been requested that I post more. All those requests by family, so I'm not sure if they count. Ever since Zoe was born I haven't had time to write at all, even in my main blog, so this one gets shoved to the wayside even more.

I will however, say that I just pre-ordered The Primal Blueprint Cookbook (by Mark Sisson of Mark's Daiy Apple), and I'm incredibly excited for it to come, though it wont be for another month or so. I've been having trouble cooking lately. I'm too tired and busy. Between school, work, working out, helping with the baby, I get home and it is much easier to eat a chunk of ham and half an avacado than create a meal. But then it doesn't feel like a real meal and I get peckish amost immediately. I remember reading recently about someone who is starting a paleo on-the-go meal company. I believe it was a football player, can't recall his name right now. But perhaps I should look into those.

Another fitness evaluation next week... I don't know why I'm nervous, it's not as if it matters for anything other than myself.

Life Can Change So Fast...

Wel, my one reader may have noticed I haven't posted in about 6 weeks. That is mainly due to the fact that on Feb 24th at 2am, my roomate (slash best friend) woke me up to say that she was going into labor... 6 weeks early. So, for quite a few weeks, mama and baby took up all my time, and the last few weeks have been finals and then Spring Break.

Workout was frustrating tonight. It was mostly cardio and work capacity, which always kills me, and it is hard to keep going when you take more than twice as long as some of the other people. Wanting to puke and bawl the whole time doesn't really help either. My friends at Jogo are so encouraging though, and they keep saying they see improvement in me, but I don't. My clothes don't fit any differently, and since I don't want to use the scale as my guage since I'm building muscle, measurements are it. And they haven't changed. It can be discouraging, but I still like being a part of the community there, so you wont see me quitting yet.

I need to find some super fast paleo recipes for food I can take to school, and not snack food. Theres only so much fruit and nuts a girl can take.

Turkey Loaf

Made mini turkey loaves today. They turned out ok, I would make a few changes next time, but I'm happy overall with how they taste.

~1.38 lbs ground turkey

2.5 small apples, chopped small

1 cup tomato sauce

1 cup chicken broth

1/2 onion, chopped small

garlic to taste

spices to taste

Mix everything together, load into mini loaf pans. Bake at 375 F for 80-90 minutes. Freeze uneaten loaves for later use.

As you can see from the alst picture, they are crumblier than I was hoping. I also used too much tomato sauce for my taste, and maybe too much broth. Next time I might grate some other random veggies in (carrots might add nice texture). I also though of cranberries, since turkey/apple/cranberry is a nice combonation.

Broken Streak

I went to the gym, coach sent me home.

Well, I tried.

It's probably for the best, I'm sick as a dog. Bronchitis or soemthing of the like.

This weekend me and sister are making meatloaf, with apples in it instead of breadcrumbs or oatmeal. I think I'm going to try to make the Cocoa/Coconut protein snack balls that were on Mark's Daily Apple too...

It's beena rough week. I've got a nasty deep chesty cough and lots of congestion. Went to the gym tonight anyway, could barely even finish the scaled workout.

The first workout where I din't feel good physically/psychologically when it was done.

I am so weary.

Me and the sister might have a paleo cook-fest this weekend though.

Failed Weekend

I was out of town this whole weekend with my choir for a convention. All our food was provided, which was great financially (starving college student here), but a really epic fail as far as nutrition (and I never use that term). Olive Garden, burgers, pizza, and donuts for breakfast? ARG! I'm trying! I had some healthy snack food with me, which helped, but I can't really survive off snack food when I want a meal. And I don't have the self dicipline yet to turn down food that is actually being served to me.

By the end I felt like crap, physically and mentally.

But I had a good workout today, was able to really see some improvement in my front squat 5x max, so that was a positive.

Nerdy

You know it's intense when having your order of fish-oil supplements come in is like Christmas.

Mmmmm..... I'm excited.

I really know nothing about fashion

You probably wont hear a lot of, "psh, Christian Soriento's new spring collection that just came out of New York Fashion Week was much to drab, the houndstooth makes me think 1950s Avon lady."

Nope. Because I don't really follow fashion shows and designers in particular. (Slash, at all).

I'd like to clarify something. Generally, I look like this:

And generally I'm doing something along the lines of this:

So I don't take myself, or my clothing, very seriously. But I gotta say. I've been loving these:

These are not D&G's edgiest ads, as there are not 7 or 8 nearly-naked, oiled men. But I love the colors, having bold lips AND eyes, channeling Frieda (eyebrows much?) and your dad's secretary. The retro glasses and scarves. I for one and pretty stoked that stuff is coming back in.

Paleo Dutch Babies

When I was a kid my mom used to make Dutch Babies for our breakfast when my dad was gone (he didn't like them very much).

The original recipe was extremely simple:

Mix 3 eggs, 1 c flour, 1 c milk. Melt 2 Tbsp butter in a cast iton skillet, pour in the batter, and bake at 400 F for about 12-15 minutes.

(I happened to find a picture on my phone of one I made a while ago, original recipe)

This is my tweak:

3 free range eggs

1/2 c coconut flour

1/2 c almond flour

1/2 c coconut milk

1/2 c almond milk

Melted 2 Tbsp (or so, didn't realy measure) of coconut oil in a little round cake pan (don't have a cast iron skillet here at school, sad face). Bake same as above.

Results:

Too grainy. Could possibly be fixed with finer ground flours, but the ones I have are already pretty fine.

Somewhat flavorless. Could be fixed by using grassfed butter instead of coconut oil.

Also maybe one less egg?

Oh well. It looked pretty good.