Whole 30 update!!!

First off: I cannot ignore the elephant in the room. I have been neglecting this blog. Like, horribly so. I'm sorry bloggy, this was never how I meant for shit to go down when I started you. I absolutely have intentions of changing this pattern though! 

Second: I FINISHED WHOLE 30! Oh yeeeyahhhh! Oh yeah, oh yeahhhh, oh yeeeeyah **imagine fist pumping here** Ok, ok - please ignore that fit of dorkiness, it really couldn't be helped. Because, really I am just so incredibly proud of myself and happy that I survived the last 30 days. 

Talk about MIA...

Holy crap...it's been a really long time.

Shortly after my last post my dad unexpectedly passed away. After that I had a really hard time feeling motivated to take care of myself. I also felt little motivation to keep up with this little blog. Plus, this past semester was rough. And I started working full time, which meant very long days between classes and work. When I got home I had to use whatever energy I had to study.

Initially I sporadically went to the gym and ate well on and off...mostly off. It was hard and it took me a while to get back into my groove. Even then it was a struggle. I would go a while doing well and taking care of myself, but then would fall back into bad habits. I even tried paleo for about a month, which is something I never thought I would be able to do. I'm proud of myself for doing it, but again it just lead to me falling into my bad habits. I did really well for that month or so. I don't know if I just felt deprived without realizing it, but for the past month or so it's been pretty bad. And it didn't help that a fairly stressful semester ended  and I just didn't want to do anything. Lately I just have not felt like myself, and I'm definitely not happy with the toll it's taken on my body. SO, I've decided to make a change and get back to my normal self and start taking care of myself again. It doesn't matter how many times we fall, so long as we get back up and dust ourselves off. So if you're like me and you're struggling to get back up, just do it! It will be hard at first, I won't lie. But it's so worth it in the end. In an attempt to get back to my normal ways I've decided to take a break from paleo...who knows, maybe once I've had a break and feel like I've got a handle on my eating habits I will give it another try. There are a few things I've taken away from my paleo trial though:

• Fat is not the enemy. Previously I would shy away from anything that seemed too fatty. I would rarely use nut butters (even though I loved them). I would rarely use oil, butter, etc to cook with. I would avoid fatty meats. Now, I really do have a different view of fats and I'm no longer scared of them. 
• Avoid overly processed foods. The less ingredients the better. There's so many chemicals and things added to foods now-a-days that our body just doesn't know what to do with. Now, I'm trying to find moderation with this as well. With paleo, there's a very strict view of how pure everything you eat should be. But there are certain things that I'm willing to compromise on. Like sriracha. I absolutely love sriracha, but according to paleo you can't have it. It's all about balance, especially right now when I'm just trying to get back into my groove. 

Anyways, enough of my talking...I thought I'd share a recipe for some amazing protein pancakes I made before my paleo trial. These were so delicious, my god just thinking about them has got me drooling. 

PB&J Protein Pancakes

Ingredients:

For the pancakes:

• 1 scoop protein powder
• 2 tbsp peanut flour (or PB2)
• 1/8 tsp baking powder
• 1 banana, mashed
• 2 egg whites

For the toppings:

• 2 handful of berries ( I used blackberries and blueberries, but any work)
• 2 tbsp peanut flour (or PB2, peanut butter/nut butter)

Directions:

1. Add protein powder, peanut flour, and baking soda to a bowl.
2. Add the banana in chunks. Mash it all together while trying to mix it the best you can. 
3. Add egg whites and stir well. 
4. Cook pancakes like any other pancakes!
5. While pancakes are cooking, put your berries on a plate or cutting board. Use a fork or masher to mash the berries very well. Combine mashed berries to form a fruit spread. 
6. Once pancakes are cooked, spread some of the fruit spread on each pancake. Stack them pancakes.
7. In a small bowl add peanut flour and enough water to make a consistency you can pour. Pour the mixture over those bad boys. 
8. Enjoy!

These pancakes are so fluffy and delicious, hands down the best protein pancakes recipe I've ever tried. This recipe was adapted from a recipe posted by @the_starving_artist on instagram.

Hopefully now that I have the summer off I will be posting a lot more on here. At least that's my goal :)

With love,

Tuffy

How upsetting

At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to post this on here...I usually tend to not share personal things very openly. It's not that I don't want people to know about things...I don't know I'm just not necessarily one to go out of my way to share it. But since this will be a pretty big challenge for me, I decided that I wanted to put it up here. 

This week I had to accept a pretty big (mandatory) temporary change to my workouts. I'm just glad it's only temporary. So I went for a short doctor's appointment on Monday before I had a minor out-patient surgery on Wednesday. At my appointment my doctor mentions to me, "oh yeah, by the way you can't do any strenuous or high impact activities or workouts for a while". My first question was "W-w-w-what?! Well what exactly can't I do? And for how long can't I do it?!". So he tells me that you know, I can't do stuff like lifting weights...or just anything that would be too strenuous on the body and proceeds to ask exactly what I do at the gym. When I tell him I usually lift weights and do the spin bike he says "oh yeah, I used to spin. You definitely can't do that". Well great. The only thing my workout is is high-impact and strenuous. And I can't do those things. What the hell am I supposed to do then?! He then tells me that I can do the elliptical and things like that and as long as it isn't strenuous he doesn't care. And when I ask how long? He says "oh, I don't know. At least 6 weeks". Well isn't that just wonderful -_-

Initially I was pretty upset. For the past month or so I've really started to get back into the gym and lifting weights consistently. I was just getting my routine down and really excited about it. And boom. For a month and a half I can't do any of it. The thing is, I know that this is the best thing for my health. There is no question I had to go through with the surgery and I know that I have to give my body time to recover from it. It's just annoying and aggravating (plus, there was one other restriction that was bad enough as it was...but then to add this whole wok-out thing just made it more annoying). 

At least I don't have to give up the gym all together. So, after being upset for a few days I decided that I would take this as an opportunity to do other things. I figured I'd stick to the elliptical, walking, or the stair master (this part I was never too upset about...it's the no lifting weights part that killed me). But I don't want to just do cardio for the next 6 weeks, so I figured I'd supplement it with a lot of pilates, yoga, and any other classes along those lines that aren't too strenuous. Luckily I actually do enjoy yoga and pilates...I would usually try to do yoga or pilates once a week before, but if I ever had to chose between yoga/pilates and weights I would definitely chose weights. So it'll be interesting to take on fitness from a very different perspective. 

I'm definitely excited to see any changes that might occur with 6 weeks of yoga and pilates...with my body, mind...anything at all.  They say that your diet is more important than the type strength training you do (or something like that), so I'm excited to test that theory out! With 2 yoga classes and 1 pilates class behind me I'm definitely enjoying it so far...I just hope I don't get bored of it.

With love,

Tuffy

 

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