Obsessed

Oh, look! Breakfast!

There's spinach, carrots, lima beans and asparagus, two eggs and three or four chunks of garlic cheese curds*. It's yummy, has lots of good things in it, is quick & easy and will keep you full. I know this is awful to admit, but all of the veggies are frozen. If you wanted to, you could cook them all at one time and then dish them out each day. I cook up what I want to use each morning. It all goes into a microwave safe plastic travel container and then into my insulated lunch sack with an ice pack. Once I get to work, I toss it into the microwave for 90 seconds, stir and repeat until cooked through. Easy, peasy.

I'm a big fan of breakfast and my absolute favorite is eggs with runny yolks, hash browns and sourdough toast. Sometimes with pancakes, too. When I was a kid, my dad would make potatoes O'Brien and eggs and bacon, and then he'd make a big mountain on his plate and top it with runny yolked eggs. I may not eat bacon, but the first thing I do is put my eggs on top of my potatoes, add salt & pepper and then cut everything up. The sourdough toast is used for mopping up whatever yolky goodness is left.

Obviously this isn't really something I should be eating every day. Breakfast is probably the meal I have the most really good options for that I still ignore completely because I have to really want to eat that. This little breakfast veggie scramble is the current Good Breakfast Incarnation. I like that I can shake it up by changing the veggies, or maybe adding salsa or avocado or changing the cheese.

A really good way to shake up the cheese flavor is by using Laughing Cow Wedges. They're soft cheeses and come in a variety of flavors.

Did you notice the part where this blog became about dieting? Me, either.

Something I picked up for snacking at work:

Wasa Rye Crisps and almond butter.
I learned about Rye crisps a few years back. I used to follow a blogger who was anorexic and bullemic. She was a total hoot and completely up front about her problems with eating disorders. Her blog was hysterical and endearing and heart wrenching. Taking eating advice from someone who is anorexic and bullemic is probably not the best idea, and I'm not even entirely sure how this subject came up, but I tried these crackers based on her recommendation. I think I used to use them with hummus or peanut butter or even Nutella. They're almost like rice cakes only with character and some actual nutrition in there.

This is how I Wasa: organic, fresh ground almond butter & sliced banana. Yum!

I've been trying to behave myself food-wise this week. I've been packing in breakfast & lunch instead of buying it, and I really, truly do plan on cooking dinner tonight. I swear. *ahem* I'm always amazed at the things that stir up into cravings. It's not always the same things, either, but it's frequently the same types of things. Like simple carbohydrates.

In that book I still haven't finished reading, Michael Pollan talks about the chemistry and the biology behind simple carbohydrates and how readily the body processes them into sugars that then feed directly into the brain. Which, of course, your brain enjoys immensely and, probably, goes through a sort of withdrawal when it stops being present.

Especially, I imagine, if you're like me and so much of your diet has contained simple carbs and processed foods.

It's a hard cycle to break, especially when your brain is trying really very hard to keep that good high coming.

Did I mention the part about how the Monkeys' dad got his hands on one of those fancy medical scales which also shows your fat percentage and even your hydration percentage? And yes I did get on that thing and no I will not be sharing any digits with you thankyouverymuch. I mean, it's not like it's a secret that I'm fat, but y'all don't really need the mental imagery that will come from me having to spell it out for you. Really.

I'm not even going to a little bit pretend like anything it had to say was a surprise. I was happy (I think) to note that the gym scale is apparently accurate and the fat percentage was, largely, what I expected it to be. Of course, seeing it in cold, hard, digitype wasn't exactly a good time. But whatever.

So I've been trying to make the effort this week to keep my diet in line and to boost my water intake. And it's frustrating. Food is like a constant dialogue in my head and I can't figure out how to shut it off. And I know that shutting that dialogue up is the key. I know, and I think have successfully proven, that I just do not have the willpower to be a constant source of "no", so I have to figure out how to shut it up.

And I'm really sorry that you're probably going to be hearing a lot about this in the coming weeks. Or months.

*I absolutely love Spring Hill Cheese Company and they're located in Two Rock Valley, near Petaluma. Spring Hill Cheese produces "Estate Cheese", which means that everything is produced there on the dairy: the cows graze the land, are milked, then the milk is turned into cheese and butter all right there at the dairy. I think that is so awesome, and we'll chat more about why when I finally get into discussing In Defense of Food. Also, Two Rock Valley is one of my favorite places, even though we usually only drive through. I really would love to settle down to farm there, but I worry that it will get flooded when the oceans rise. Because, yes, I do worry about those things.