What I Ate Wednesday: Pumpkin Edition
Good morning!!!!!!!!
Holy shit, are things slowing down all around me. Summer is decidedly gone, and I’m sad about it, not gonna lie- but the fall produce is POPPING up here in Portland, and it’s absolutely soothing the burn of no more warmth. Today I want to give you a sneak peak into all the good stuff I’ve been eating! 
This bowl of oats was positively fantastic. In addition to oatmeal, it included home made walnut milk, cinnamon seared apples, a hint of maple extract, pureed pumpkin, and peanut butter.
Let me tell you a little something about Pumpkin: right now, I absolutely have more than I even know what to do with. Let me explain:
By some amazing stroke of luck, one of the first new people I met in Portland happens to be a farmer. Not just any farmer, but one with an overabundance of produce and an under-abundance of time to cook up said produce. As soon as I figured out that this was this guy’s deal, I knew I had a trade in mind. He gives me veggies, I make him some servings of food from said veggies. I asked him what he might think of such a trade and when he responded by saying “This is perfect!” I nearly flipped my shit. Was I really about to be getting a fuckton of free vegetables just for portioning aside some of what I already made? Yes. Yes I was.
So this week, in addition to all the greens and onions and beets and carrots and the last of the summer corn, I got pumpkins. Not one pumpkin, or two pumpkins, or even three. I got five pumpkins.
I figured I better get to cooking.
These pumpkin pie chocolate thumbprint cookies were kind of a perfect pre-workout treat. I had formulated the recipe for KeVita (the post should go up sometime in November!) and I was struck by how tasty and wholesome they were, and how well they held together for something that was both vegan and gluten-free (Pumpkin makes an excellent binder, y’all). I ate one before my workout (with my new maybe-workout buddy! I am still seeking more of these if you like to olympic lift, powerlift, and get all around sweaty and stoked)
Post cookie, here was my workout:
5 sets of 2: snatch grip deadlifts + power snatch
5 sets of 1 complex: 2 military presses + 3 push presses
4 sets of 2: front squats with a three second pause at the bottom
2 supersets
10 seated box jumps
10 dumbell split squats (10 on each leg)
then the cardio!
400 meter row
4 sets of 5 front squats and 10 pull-ups
400 meter row
The whole thing took us about an hour and a half and when I was done I was truly READY for this recovery smoothie.
This mix included more walnut milk, Vega Sport vanilla protein powder, 1/2 a banana, ice, and- you guessed it- pumpkin.
After I threw the smoothie down my hatch it was time to do a little work. My main point of focus these days is putting the finishing touches on formulating my Reset and Restore program, which is a three week group class with a focus on vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free eating, mindfulness and meditation, movement, and feeling fucking awesome. In between recording some of the meditations I am sending people, formulating meal plans, making shopping lists, and researching mindfulness, I ate this soup (a french onion one, the recipe of which was actually formulated for Reset and Restore!) along with a slice of the best vegan gluten-free bread ever topped with a slice of melted Daiya swiss (vegan) cheese. It was p-re-tttt-y damn satisfying. (there are a couple of spots left in the Reset and Restore, too! Just sign up before Halloween)
For dinner, I made some seared purple cabbage, smoky tempeh crumbles, and a side of mashed pumpkin. I am kind of embarrassed by the constant occurance of pumpkin at this point, but fuck it- let me tell you what I capped my day off with.
A creamy, cinnamony pumpkin pudding. Another Reset and Restore recipe, and this one is a serious keeper.
By shaping my meals around the produce I am getting, I feel like I am both extremely well fed, and saving a TON of cash. That’s a recipe for one happy lady!
What have you been eating lately?
What I Ate Wednesday – Vegan, Gluten-Free Fitness Food for the masses!
Good Morning!
Things have been really, super, very busy around these parts. I used to think “oh, as soon as XYZ is done, I will have ALL THIS TIME to do SO MANY THINGS”. Recently, I had the realization that I will likely always have projects and it makes sense to get used to having a lot going on. This is the life of a person who is willing to #workthathustle in order to live an enjoyable life. It is full, of course, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad.
There are a lot of moving parts in terms of my day to day and I don’t take that for granted. While I’ve always been driven by projects and achievements, for years I didn’t do much outside of my eating disorder. I am honestly still getting used to the fact that I have a big life, with friends and clients and a partner. When I start to feel overwhelmed lately, I try to remind myself of times when I would simply mope all day and go to bed at 7PM, because I just wanted my day to be over. My life was therapy, the nutritionist, OA meetings, and compulsive cardio. I hated my body. My friendships were limited, and even with people I felt alone.
I don’t forget where I’ve come from.
ANYWAY, I am supposed to be telling you about my meals and snacks, not the deep dark shit in my past. What I am basically trying to say is that with my business, my side hustle recipe formulation, writing, friends, the podcast, my partner, a wedding in less than three weeks, kauai right after, and a move to Portland in September, shit is definitely happening. I am not living on the sidelines and I’m super grateful! Here is a peak at my food:
6:00AM – Pre workout, AKA breakfast number one:
My daily morning steez has been a FitQuick waffle with banana soft serve lately, and I cannot recommend this combo enough. The carbs give me quick energy to get out there and crush it at the gym, and a waffle and ice cream breakfast makes the kid in me really, really happy. After this waffle I hit the gym for the first day in my de-load week. I did the following workout:
A. 1 clean and 2 front squats- 4 sets at 70% of your clean one rep max
B. Back squat: 3 sets of 8 at 60% of your one rep max
C. Behind the Neck snatch grip push press- 5 sets of 3 at 60% of your one rep max snatch
D. Superset: 2 sets- 20 hip extensions, 20 weighted walking lunges
E. Cardio: 90 double unders, 30 back squats, 60 double unders, 20 front squats, 30 double unders, 10 overhead squats . (finished in 17 minutes and 36 seconds) Incidentally, my friend Ed was filming his back squat PR as I finished my overhead squats and he captured me I felt truly fucked as I completed this workout, but I’m looking strong! I’ll take it.
9:30AM- Post workout, aka Breakfast number two:
I love the fitness life for many, many reasons and how good exercise makes food taste is just one of them. This meal was a Stumptown Cold Brew in honor of my beloved Portland, paired with some Bread SRSLY vegan gluten-free sourdough, nooch, and some super-eggy style tofu scramble. This recipe is soooo simple, but the Kama Nalak salt takes the scram to a serious next-level. As a vegan who used to love eggs, I find this to be divine.
1:00 PM- lunch!
In the past, I have always had green smoothies for one of my two breakfasts, and it has taken some adjustment to just be getting my first veg serving after noon. I personally find that old orthorexic thoughts can still creep in from time to time, so I am actually enjoying the challenge of letting myself have what I want, as opposed to what I think I should have. Who says green smoothies are the only breakfast? Really, I think the answer is that no one said that, and that somewhere along the lines I made it up as a rule and stuck to it regardless. My breakfasts are directly around my workouts, and I find myself significantly more satisfied when I chew to get my nutrition at those times. Maybe you feel the same?
What was I talking about again?
Oh, yeah. Lunch.
So, by the time lunch rolled around, I was super ready for some veg-action. This pile is kale, steamed yukon gold potatoes, Beyond Meat grilled Chicken Strips, and Rita’s Chipotle Salsa, all piled on Food for Life Corn Tortillas. The tortillas are sprouted (yay, digestability!) and made of whole corn kernals. I LOVE them.
6:00PM- Dinner
Dinner was a new recipe I formulated for the KeVita blog that I am actually really excited about. It involved eggplant, chickpeas, tomatoes, onions, capers, olives, cilantro, zucchini noodles, and – of course- some KeVita. It was topped with So Delicious Unsweetened Cultured Coconut Milk and it tasted awesome. At the time of writing, that recipe has yet to be posted, but keep checking back. It should be up there soon!
8:00PM- Dessert
It is definitely on the liberal side to call a protein chia pudding a dessert, but it was sweet and cold without the blood sugar spike, so I think it’s kind of perfect. Basically, I soaked 3 Tablespoons of Chia with unsweetened homemade pumpkin seed milk, 1 scoop of Vanilla Vega Sport and some frozen berries, and it tastes fucking awesome. I eat some variation of a protein pudding, ice cream, or pancake (typically using Vega) almost every day and I LOVE the flavor.
In between my foods and my workout I promoted a post I had written on emotional eating, cleaned the gym that I do a trade with, got groceries, answered client emails, formulated a meal plan, met with a client in person, formulated and photographed said KeVita recipe, trained a client, showered, and recorded my Podcast.
With the exception of the dinner recipe (which I formulated and took time with as part of my work), each meal took me less than 10 minutes to prepare. It may seem overhwhelming to eat healthy, but once you get in the flow it can actually be super efficient.
What are YOU eating lately? Links and pictures, PLZ!
Weekend Reading: Taking Care Edition
This week has kind of kicked my ass, and there isn’t really an external rhyme or reason.
Basically, I am contending with that one week a month that many female bodied people have. I know my ladies know what I mean: it’s the one that just fucking sucks for energy. (for the record, this is the week before my period, and by the time my actual period arrives I feel much better.) For the past few days I’ve been lethargic, I’ve been hungry, I’ve had zero energy for exercise or super elaborate meals or even to have a whole lot of specificity around what I’m eating. I’ve been simplifying: meals are non-creative at this point (baked potato, broccoli, nutritional yeast, tempeh, ad infinitum) and I’ve skipped my fasted cardio all week in favor of more lifting sessions because fuck it, when the going gets sleepy, the sleepy lift weights. (that’s true for everyone, right? guys? anyone? Oh, just me? Hmmm.)
It has been good to go slower, eat chiller, and to rest more. here are a few articles I found while surfing the net as I relaxed!
How to Structure your Days if you’re Depressed by Ragini for Rookie Magazine
I totally struggle with healthy doses of depression and anxiety from time to time, because I am a human being in a terribly bizarre and heartbreaking world. This guide was written with teenage girls in mind, but because I think I’ll always be a bit of a sullen teen at heart, it spoke to me perfectly.
5 Foods You Should Never Eat by June Lupiani
You know what I fucking despise? Those weird pop-up internet ads (often on health and wellness blogs!) with a picture of a cartoon banana and the words “5 foods you should never eat!” emblazoned across it. WHAT IS UP WITH THE BANANA HATE, TURDZ OF THE NET? This list is a spoof on that whole thing, and actually includes some real talk about when it makes sense to avoid certain foods. Spoiler alert: no specific foods are mentioned and the whole thing has a spin of both food and body positivity. My kind of list!
That’s What Friends Are For by Rocco at RK Wellness
This article was an insightful and beautiful rumination on the difficulty and importance of friendship as we age. I just turned thirty-one, and I have to say: the list of people I am close with has gotten smaller, and I have a tough time getting out there to build new relationships. This article totally spoke to that conundrum directly, and inspired me to keep trying.
Muscles by Brussels is my favorite podcast and real talk about eating disorders is possibly my favorite subject. This episode gets kinda gritty! It talks about the relatively unspoken dangers of dieting within a vegan athlete competition context- a subject I have been dying to hear more about.
Ginger Sesame Tempeh Lettuce Wraps by Alissa Saenz
This dream boat of a wrap needs to get in my hands- STAT. I’m totally willing to break out of my lazy food rut for a taste!
Happy weekend <3
