Gary Taubes in Vogue? YES!

Who would have thunk it. Maybe the idea of my blog is actually catching on; fashion and paleo... Who knew.

Now, Gary Taubes, isn't on par with Robb Wolfe, Loren Cordain, Mark Sisson, or any of the dudes over at whole9. But, as the author of "Good Calories, Bad Calories," he's a pretty respected author and nutritionist in the paleo community. The actual word "paleo" does not appear anywhere in the article, and plays devil's advocate in including quotes from traditionalist doctors and nutritionists. But it starts out with the fact that Taubes and Vogue's Elizabeth Weil are meeting for lunch at T-Rex, "a caveman-type resteraunt," goes on to explain chronically elevated insulin levels, and includes this paleo-cornerstone statement:

"Taubes recommends unlimited quantities of meat, fish, poultry, and eggs, plus vegetables daily. He embraces fat but is skeptical of whole grains (they elevate blood sugar) and milk (lactose is a carb)."

To read the whole article, click here.

In other news, I've been shopping a little too much lately. I've got a pretty sweet wardrobe currently to show for it though.

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.