A recent purchase

Up until about 3 weeks ago my boyfriend and I were both pretty big soda drinkers. Well...not "big" really, we only had ~1/day...but nonetheless we very rarely skipped our "soda-a-day" habit. I mean it's not like we were drinking regular sodas, we only drank diet soda...so I always had the mentality of "yes, I know soda isn't good for you. but at least it's diet. that means it's not as bad". It's not that I was wrong...diet soda is a better choice than regular soda. But soda is still soda. It still has chemicals, food coloring, etc.

Before my boyfriend and I started dating he never drank soda...diet or regular. Actually, about 3-4 years ago when I lived in NYC I stopped drinking soda and using artificial sweeteners all together. If I did have soda, I'd consider it a treat and I'd only have regular. For the most part I drank tea, water, and coffee. And then I moved back home to Las Vegas, where my mom is a big diet soda drinker. Slowly but surely I started drinking diet soda again, and before I knew it I was drinking it daily again. And when me and my boyfriend started dating, diet soda slowly became a daily drink for him as well.

Well about 4 weeks ago my boyfriend decided to stop drinking soda. For no real reason, other than there's just a lot of "artificial" things about soda. I thought, "well, good for you. but I am just not interested in giving up my soda every day". That lasted for about a week and then I realized that he really does have a good point, so I decided to start cutting down my sodas. About another week went by and I just wasn't really drinking soda anymore...and it really wasn't hard or bad not having soda. This is about the time that we decided to get this:

We had been eyeing this tea pot at a local Japanese store for a while now...I think since we moved in together last November. But we kept just putting it off, figuring we really didn't drink that much tea so it wasn't really worth the $40 or so. But since we started on this new "no soda" kick, I figured it was about time to get it. Plus, I figured it would motivate us to continue along this path. And it has. Neither of us really drinks soda any more. I mean, rarely we do. Maybe if we are at a restaurant. Or if we need a good mixer ;) (like diet cream soda and whipped cream Smirnoff...o m g...so delicious).

Since we stopped drinking soda, I drink more water (~1.5-2 liters/day) and much more tea. Sometimes I'm able to squeeze a cup of tea in at work, but regardless of that I always come home and make a pot of tea with dinner. The way I see tea, is it's a very natural way to drink flavored water...because that's basically what it is. Plus, tea has a lot of possible health benefits. Most of the health claims that scientists and researchers make are very limited and not fully proven. However, the possibilities are there. and it seems that many health professionals/researchers are in agreement that regularly drinking tea, in conjunction with other healthy habits, can help improve your overall health. I really like this article from Health that explains the possible benefits of tea (and also discusses the lack of research).

So overall, do I really feel any difference in my health since I started drinking more tea and stopped drinking diet soda? Eh...not really to be honest. But, I really do like the idea of making my diet a little bit "cleaner". I haven't stopped with the zero-calorie sweeteners though. I still add stevia to my coffee every morning. I don't know how concerned I am about omitting zero-calorie sweeteners at the moment either. At least I've moved on to an all-natural sweetener!

Love,
Tuffy

OOTD

This is from last Friday at work. I love this shirt, it's so unique.

Shirt/tank: diesel
Jeans: Charlotte rousse
Shoes: rocketdog
Necklace: street vender in NYC
Bracelets: forever 21 + Tiffany's
Ring: plato's closet

Summer floral nails!

One of my favorite things to do is my nails. I'm not amazing at it, but I'm fairly good (for a newbie), and I've certainly come a long way from a year or two ago. I'm always looking for inspiration for easier-nail art that I can do on myself. Tumblr is always a good place for inspiration. I saw a really pretty floral nail on tumblr that led me to a video tutorial. As I'm watching this tutorial I'm thinking to myself that I might actually be able to pull this off...sort of. So I throw caution to the wind and decide to try it on one nail, figuring if it doesn't work I'll only have wasted time on one nail. So...this is how it came out:

Considering this was my first time ever attempting anything like this, and I have no "official" nail art tools by any means, I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself.

Here's the video tutorial that inspired me:

Ok, ok. I know hers look way better...but she's definitely more talented than I...that is for sure. Anyways, this is pretty easy, and I definitely think other newbies out there like me should try it too!

Love,

Tuffy

OOTD

I'm not typically an OOTD person, but I do this photo-a-day thing on Instagram where you post 1 picture a day according to this list. I find them entertaining :) Anyways, one of the days said to post what you were wearing that day, so I made this little collage. Like I said, it's not usually my thing (although I do love looking at other peoples!)...but I got a pretty decent response and it was kind of fun. So perhaps there will be more to come.

So this was a work outfit for me the other day. The vast majority of the time I have to wear scrubs at work. But every now and then I get to wear real people clothes, so I like to have fun with it (and my work is fairly casual). Sooo yep, that's pretty much it :)

With love,

Tuffy

Calzones

I give my boyfriend credit for this amazing idea. Seriously...so amazing. I may have been the one to make it a reality, but I never would have had the chance if it weren't for him laying the ground work.

Here's a preview

So last night I get home from a relatively busy day of work and I'm super hungry. My first thought is to make this spaghetti squash recipe from Hungry Girl that I've been meaning to make all week (and have all the ingredients for). So I pull up the recipe...it's going to take an hour+ to make. I can't wait that long to eat. I might just eat our entire snack cabinet if I wait that long. So we're standing in front of the fridge trying to decide...erring on the faster side. Sausages? Pizza? Pizza with sausage? And then he says it. What if we made calzones with pita? I had to think about it for about 60 seconds. In that time he starts to say maybe we shouldn't do it because he's not sure how it will turn out. In that same amount of time I have made up my mind that this just might be his most amazing idea yet...I'm not sure if it will work, but at this point there's no way we're not doing this.

So I preheat the oven to 450 & we each start making our filling.

• His: Jalapeno chicken sausage from Trader Joe's, pre-cooked chicken slices, artichoke hearts, spinach, garlic, seasonings
• Hers: jalapeno chicken sausage, sliced mushrooms, artichoke hearts, roma tomato, spinach, garlic, seasonings

I cut a slit down the middle of one side of the pita, so that we could stuff everything into both sides without really disturbing the shape of the pita. So we carefully stuffed in our filling, followed by a bit of fat free ricotta and low fat shredded mozzarella. 

Top picture: before cooking

Middle pictures: our fillings (hers/his)

Bottom picture: halfway through eating

I baked them for about 12 minutes at 450. My main worry was that the pita wouldn't harden up and it would just sort of fall apart upon moving it to a plate. After taking them out of the oven I was very happy to see that the tops of the pita had hardened up beautifully...like an actual calzone! My boyfriends was perfect, I was able to take it off of the pan without even using a spatula. Mine was a bit more difficult and was sticking a bit, forcing me to use a spatula so it didn't fall apart. Next time I will spray the pan with some cooking spray. 

I was incredibly happy with the outcome, mine was so tasty and really hit the spot. I made a salad as well, and it was the perfect amount of food. Now we are planning on experimenting with stuffed personal pizzas and maybe even stuffed crust personal pizzas. Mmmm...the possibilities! :)

Todays lunch

Salad: spinach + mixed greens, red onion, cucumber, Roma tomato, fat free feta, and sun dried tomato sliced turkey.
Pink lady apple
Fage 0% cherry pomegranate w/ 1 tbsp ground flax

Tonight's dinner

Tofu edamame nuggets from Trader Joe's. Sunomono salad. Whole wheat cous cous.

I really like the tofu edamame nuggets. They don't really taste like chicken nuggets, but are a really tasty alternative.

I really love cous cous. It's super quick and super yummy. Today I added some ground black pepper and toasted sesame seeds, I really liked it.

I took cues from Hungry Girl's 2-ingredient Sunomono :

• 1/4 cucumber, thinly sliced
• a few very thin onion slices
• ~ 3/4 tbsp rice vinegar
• ~1/4 tbsp sesame seeds

While this just isn't the same as what I get at sushi places, it was surprisingly easy and delicious.