November Challenge... Extended AKA "Winter Challenge"

November Challenge Recap: 

• Self-imposed shopping freeze.  This mostly has to do with clothing.  Desired shopping trip come Black Friday.  
• Starting weight on November 1st = X.  
• Need to Lose: 6% of X
• Deadline (in order to break shopping freeze): Black Friday morning, 3 weeks.
• Added little challenges: That is the morning immediately following Thanksgiving.  Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving with some friends this weekend. (huge meals!)
• General approach: Better eating, Start to routine up working out again for regularity, Start sleeping like a human being.

At the end of the Challenge, being Thanksgiving/Black Friday, I was still at only 1% lost.  Which means I am home working and not shopping today (Black Friday).

I started to recognize how ambitious my 3-week 6% was - but the fact of the matter is I don't appreciate buying clothes at this size and feel anyways - so here is the extension of my November Challenge, renamed my "Winter Challenge."

I want to buy clothes.  But I need to drop some pounds, and stop feeling gross, and require a good motivator on top of just myself and my internal dialogue.  Especially motivating is that I seriously want to buy this wool pencil skirt from J Crew in at least four colors (and it's on sale! with extra sale! today! yaaarh).

So I am continuing with my self-imposed shopping freeze.  There's no deadline, so much as ASAP. As a punishment for this failure, I am upping the ante to 8%. 

This means I am on a self-imposed shopping freeze until I have lost 8% of X (starting weight from November 1st).

The November Challenge was at least some decent base building.  (I also just signed up for Spring Team in Training for a double header of half marathons, and am currently base building for training, just meaning that I'm laying the groundwork to start training for half marathons.  And I similarly look at the November Challenge as having laid the groundwork to really start dropping some weight/getting in shape).

Even if it was only 1% lost of X, I started to force myself to be more conscious of my eating habits (next step is to... eat less), and I finally began to work out again and added cardio workouts back into my life (necessary, next step more consistency and increased intensity).  I have also been working on fixing my sleeping habits, to keep myself healthy in other ways.  A lot of first steps/beginnings for this whole "you know how to drop weight and keep it off, so why don't you just do it..." - and here I am.

Weekly updates to come.

Quick Update: November Challenge, Week 2

So I have a few photos and food ideas, but I owe an update, so I will be quick with this one until I have a chance to write something further.

At my Week 2 weigh-in, I was still at 1% of my original weight, X, lost.  

Reminder: I weighed in at X and gave myself 3 weeks to drop 6% of that in order to be able to break my self-imposed shopping freeze (mostly clothes based, also mildly house-stuff based).  

That leaves 5% to lose of X in just one week, as Black Friday is THIS FRIDAY, and Thanksgiving is in 3 days from right now.

Things are not looking promising to break my freeze for Black Friday.  I would have loved to do that for the deals.  If I do not hit 6% by Black Friday, I am either going to:
A) Wait until I hit 6% for a consecutive three days (to make sure it's not a fluke) and break my shopping freeze then, or
B) Up the ante to like 7%, and give a new deadline to try to get it by.

I am currently unsure which option seems to make more sense, but I am keeping them on my radar in case my Thanksgiving Thursday and subsequent Black Friday weigh-ins do not go well enough for me to shop.

What option do you like?

November Challenge: WEEK ONE PROGRESS

The title of this post turns out to be kind of misleading.  But I guess progress is how you view it.

November Challenge Recap: 

• Self-imposed shopping freeze.  This mostly has to do with clothing.  Desired shopping trip come Black Friday.  
• Starting weight on November 1st = X.  
• Need to Lose: 6% of X
• Deadline (in order to break shopping freeze): Black Friday morning, 3 weeks.
• Added little challenges: That is the morning immediately following Thanksgiving.  Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving with some friends this weekend. (huge meals!)
• General approach: Better eating, Start to routine up working out again for regularity, Start sleeping like a human being.

So at the end of Week 1:

Weight Progress: Lost 1% of X. That means still 5% to go, and now with only 2 weeks!

Sleep: In Progress.  

Weekends could be called in either direction.  NinjaManFriend was at my place, and he's a great sleeper, so that usually brings me some balance.  And he lets me sleep late on weekend mornings because I can otherwise be sleep-deprived and mean.  That said, we go out and see friends, and sometimes that means we are out (and thus up) too late to consider it good sleep habitizing.

I spent the earlier part of this week making great strides.  I was forcing myself to just drag over to my bed and read (eliminating falling asleep on the couch and waking up rickety and confused).  I went back to the world of alarms to get my body back on a schedule.  

Mid-week, because it's dark out, I eliminated late afternoon naps.  I sometimes let myself succumb to such on my couch for about 30-45 minutes.  But now that we've set the clocks back (Daylight Savings) and it's nearing winter, I discovered the dangers of a 30-minute nap at my usual time, because I wake up and it's dark and I panic thinking I've missed class or returning to work or any other plethora of things that happens before nighttime.

The later half of this week was a sleeping mess.  I would not notice that I was up really absurdly late working on something (such as preparing my exam supplement for a quiz in one of my classes), and it threw me off a bit. One night was spent on the couch by accident.  But otherwise, we'll still consider this in progress.

Workouts:  Just started.

Sadly, there was only one actual workout, and it was later in the week.  

This week, I was strangely productive in most facets of my life except for this one.  But the one workout was progress.  Usually, my problem when I've hit this lull/rut is that workouts are easily the first thing I cut when I "just don't have time."  With the gym, there's a lot of "and if I don't go now, then I won't make it for [insert a class here] and then I'll be late for school"... 

But I got out of my "you're paying for the gym so go to it" head, and forced myself to just do an at-home workout.  It was a core workout from SELF magazine using these balance pods and it actually kicked my ass.  My sense of balance is... off, apparently.  I also either did something wrong or should really use this as an eye-opening tool for where I am weak right now - because the following day, my core was not sore, but my legs were, and my Achilles tendon was screaming with "your ankle is weak please fix that and I will remind you with sharp pains."  So really, as far as workouts go, I've only just begun.

---

I'll try to do another update before Week 2 is completely over, but until next time, I leave you with a skinnier take on a feel-good, for when the weather gets cold and it's dark at 5:30pm:

Lazy-person's Less-Guilty Grilled Cheese and Soup:

I was in the mood for a creamy soup for weeks.  And honestly, as much as I love to cook, and I love a good roasted tomato soup or a squash soup, I just did not feel like blending hot things to make this happen.  Also, I have a bunch of soup in my pantry (including that old-school Campbell's condensed tomato soup).  So one day this week, I was feeling kind of morose for no reason except that we're nearing winter, and I thought... what better pick-me-up than some grilled cheese and some tomato soup!

Also, the week before, I had gone to the market and bought the largest bunch of kale I've ever seen for less than $4, and had already used well more than half of it, but still had a freezer bag full of stemmed, chopped kale.  And you could tell it was starting to go a bit.  So I thought: "Of course!  Kale should be in my soup!"

Also, I add Crushed Red Pepper and regular Ground Black Pepper to 97% of my food.

On top of that, my parents go to Costco often, and my mom and I have worked out a game plan where we split a lot of things (I either take half or one-third) because neither her and my father, nor myself, can ever finish an entire sized anything from Costco on our own.  So I have just this ridiculous collection of light swiss cheese slices and laughing cow cheese in my fridge right now.  And this helped me finally finish off one bag (of multiple) of light Swiss cheese slices.

Oh and I have sprayable fake butter because sometimes I am tired and don't want to dirty a knife...

By the way, did you know: Sandwich Thins, if you love sandwiches, are your diet best friend.

So in the end, here are the lazy ingredients: 

• Sandwich Thins (1 "roll" (is that the quantifier for a sandwich thin?))
• 1 can Campbell's tomato soup (condensed)
• Sprayable butter
• Leftover greens (kale in my case)
• Crushed red pepper (to taste)
• Ground pepper (to taste)
• 2 slices light Swiss cheese.

Cook the can of soup on your stove top as it instructs, add in your greens for simmering, pepper to your tastes.  Meanwhile, split open your sandwich thin roll.  Flip the two halves into a plate so the insides of the roll are facing up.  Spray with butter concept.  Place one slice, buttered side down, in a pan.  Arrange on your cheese.  Place the other slice of sandwich thin butter side up.  When the cheese starts to melt, flip.  Eat.  Dip in soup.

Decidedly, the tricks to making grilled cheese with a sandwich thin:

1. I should have found round-sliced provolone because sandwich thins are circular.  But I had rectangular-sliced Swiss cheese, so just note, you get a little but of cheese spillover.
2. When you open up your sandwich thin, use the official outsides (the rougher pocked sides) as the insides of your grilled cheese (where the cheese goes).  Spray the softer, flatter, smoother side of the sandwich thins with the fake butter and use that side for grilling.  It comes out more even and happier that way.

 

NOVEMBER CHALLENGE: Shopping Freeze To Weight Loss

It's official - we're in the depth of Autumn/Fall-going-Winter.

So it seems only fair to admit a sad sad truth.  After I worked super hard to drop a bunch of excess weight I'd put on after college... it then mostly came back.  And it honestly caught me by surprise.

In the Spring, I set a personal record for a Half Marathon, and went Vegan for 46 days.  I still had physical goals and motivators regarding wearing all the clothes in my closet, and weight loss, and fitness... but I was generally in a physically happy place.  

And then, I hit a bad patch.  

I think it was the following formula of doom: 
Nothing to train for + Work stresses + Final exams.  

So I was no longer regularly working out and I was feeling the effects of it, but I also felt like I had no time to dwell on it.  And I was eating like garbage.  And I was not sleeping.  And the weight came on quickly.  

And then, while you'd think the summer would be a great time to get back at it... I just didn't.  My summer went by pretty fast.  I had made this ambitious list of things I wanted to do over the summer, fully recognizing I would be lucky to get to even half of it.  No complaints - summers can just get busy.  There was a lot of traveling and catching up with people I had not spent enough time with during the year.  Oh, and DC is actually a city built on a swamp, so by midday I wanted to do nothing with my life that involved more sweating.

Now, I am in a new Fiscal Year at the office, I am mid-semester in classes, I am teleworking, and really it's just time.  It's time to stop having those sad a-ha moments about how things fit or how I'm feeling, and to stop realizing when I've run out of time to get a workout in, and to stop falling asleep on my couch at 2am.

And instead of over-thinking things, since I've done it before and know how it works - I'm really just going to do it.  No gimmicky diets - just... more out than in... and a generally healthier life perspective.  

But as I am writing this on about 3.5 hours of sleep (fail!), clearly I needed a superficial motivator (it's HARD to go back to your first workout in a few weeks, and it's also HARD not to be so tired that all I want to do is order Chinese takeout instead of eat something that fuels me and not my growing waistline).

So I put myself on a shopping freeze.  All I want to do right now is buy fall clothing and fill up the closet I clean out every few weeks.  But no.  I'm going to wait until I'm a size I appreciate and this will give me a nice little kick in the ass to get moving.

So here it is - my November challenge.  I want to be able to shop on Black Friday.  That means I have to get off my shopping freeze.  So I started with a first weigh-in on November 1st, exactly 3 weeks before Black Friday.  And my goal is to lose 6% of that original weight by Black Friday.  "Goal" is actually not the correct word - if I don't hit 6%, no shopping all those magical Black Friday sales.  If I hit it, great!  Then I'll have saved on frivolous shopping for three weeks, and be able to celebrate.

The basics of my approach are to:

1. Eat better.
   Return to portion control, stop eating at one o'clock in the morning.  Stop ordering out when I can just cook fresh food.  Pay attention to what I consume.
2. Get on some kind of routine, RE: workouts.
   Use my gym membership.  Love yoga.  GO ON RUNS.  Move around more than just walking around the city.  Stop making excuses.
3. Get on a routine, RE: sleep.
   This will help with both of the above - being awake at one in the morning usually leads me to wanting to snack at one in the morning.  There's all that science about sleeping benefiting weight loss goals.  Also, I wake up on my couch a lot by accident, with a sore neck.  And then I'm just tired and don't feel like doing anything... which is then fueled further by the lethargy that comes from not working out.  So really... sleep because it's important.

But I'm not going to over-plan what my next day will look like - I'm really just going to do this, and my posts in November will be recipes I'm trying, workouts, revelations, and an honest report of where I am in my percentage-of-November-1st weight lost progress.

Hopefully I'll be running into you while I buy a fair isle sweater on Black Friday!

Debrief: 30-Day Paleo Challenge

Some time this summer, I visited a dear friend of mine - I'm going to have to nick name her soon, since she is also the one who doled to me all of her sage wisdom about going vegan - and she happened to be eating Paleo at the time.  (Ah, I will call her my NinjaMuse).  I love visiting her and reading her cookbooks and learning new things to perhaps try out.  That weekend, I decided to finally go through with a 30-day gluten-free challenge.  I've explained previously how much I love a good X-day challenge - they offer me a change of pace, new tricks, and some expanse beyond my usual routine.  That said, I like to be "armed" in 30-day challenges, especially ones that I consider as "intense" as gluten-free.  I use the word "intense" with much meaning, because soy sauce... the sauce of my people... has gluten in it!  Knowing how much of my every day food involved gluten, I wanted to go into this challenge armed with a cookbook so that I could at least prepare gluten-free foods at home.  NinjaMuse did not have specifically gluten-free cookbooks, but had many Paleo cookbooks.  (Paleo diets are inherently gluten-free!)  So instead, I changed it up and decided to take on a 30-day Paleo challenge.

Hilariously, it seems there is a spectrum to eating a Paleo diet -- some letting you have some dairy, and the most strict/pure/clean Whole30 program.  I took to several blogs regarding opinions on what foods make up a Paleo diet.  At first, it was easier to think about the No's when shopping, so no dairy, no corn/rice/grains/wheat/gluten, no potatoes, no legumes, no processed food, no fake sugars, and no vegetable or corn oil.  I recruited a friend to partake in the challenge with me, picked a day to start, and in we charged the day after Labor Day.  I had a really hard time recognizing all of the things I could NOT eat for awhile, and I ended up hanging this cheat sheet nearby at all times:

You will note that I allowed myself wine - so clearly I was not on the super strict side of the spectrum, although I did still avoid dairy.  The ones that surprised me most were vegetable and corn oils, and legumes.  Oh and rice, again the food of my people.

The fantastic thing was that I started teleworking full time around the same time as I began this challenge - which meant I was able to make fresh meals for myself, to keep myself motivated.

The poor timing of this challenge was three-fold:

1. It was the end of a rough Fiscal Year for me.  The month of September was incredibly busy, work-wise, and I was back in classes, so I felt overwhelmed with things to do... and then piled on this diet that was difficult to explain to friends and restaurants and required me to think beyond the box sometimes.  In the end, and a fit of stress, this led me to cut the challenge short at 27 days, because I was just done thinking about it.
2. In the third week of the challenge, I went to Connecticut with NinjaManFriend to participate in a charity bike ride.  Along the way, we stopped in New York and stayed with his grandfather, whom I was meeting for the first time.  This included two dinners with NinjaManFriend's Italian grandfather, and some extended Italian family.  I took this as 36 hours off Paleo.  Since eating Paleo was just something I was trying out, without a deep emotional conviction tied to it, I couldn't find it within myself to want to explain some diet I was just doing for fun to these family members I was meeting for the first time.  It was my goal not to be "that girlfriend" who gets brought home.
3. Right after the weekend of the charity bike ride, one of my cousins returned from a trip abroad and we had a family reunion luncheon.  Almost all of the cousins and aunts and uncles on my mom's side came, and it was a 20-person banquet for 13 people at a Chinese restaurant.  This was not made to be Paleo-friendly.  My choices were to eat the food and take a 3-hour Paleo break, or not eat at all and explain myself to my family while they probably judged me.  I chose the former.

All in all, this means I did 25 days as a Paleo eater.

Here is what I took away from it.

• While it was easier at first, especially for shopping for groceries, to think about what foods were off-limits, it was better to think about what I could eat and what I was eating.  Vegetables, fruits, good meat (I learned how great local butchers are!) - true enough, everything felt whole and fresh and wonderful.
• I learned of the amazing flavor-sponge quality of the yam or sweet potato.
  I had made this curry and was at a complete loss for what to throw it on top of.  It was already full of vegetables and meat, and all I know of curry is that I love to mix the sauce with rice and just let it soak up all that curry goodness.  Then a friend suggested the sweet potato.  This was a game-changer.  It was incredible.  It really took on the flavor of my curry and absorbed it much like rice would.  It was this curry-filled pillow of deliciousness at the end of several exciting mouthfuls of curry vegetables and meat.
• Healthy fats are wonderful.
• I already knew how much I love avocadoes.  But they can be sliced onto most savory dishes and just add this creamy quality that feels like a treat every time.
• Coconuts are amazing.  I don't think I was always a lover of coconut.  I think, as a child, Mounds were like a mouthful of dry shredded coconut, and I was never able to get passed that.
  Until now.
  I adore cooking things in coconut oil.  The fragrance.  The taste.  The benefits.
  Coconut water, upon my second try, feels refreshing and like it sets all my systems in motion.
  Shredded/Flaked coconut.  Toast and use on spicy dishes.  Don't bother toasting and sprinkle onto lemon treats.  Win. Win.
  Coconut flour.  I only really used it to make these coconut-lemon bars, but I was obsessed with them (they combined coconut and lemon curd) and I loved them with some nice berries (end of the summer and all).  They were somehow both airy and dense - is that even possible? Go with it.
• Paleo honestly stopped me from overeating.
  I wasn't sure I could believe it when I started.  One of the blogs I'd read had explained that the reason people lose weight eating Paleo, which consists of meat and fats, is that they just end up eating less.  And it was definitely true for me.  There were only so many eggs or so much bacon I could shovel before I was just done in any given meal.  In fact, when I broke my Challenge, I did so with gelato and deep dish pizza.  But really I ate half of a small cup of gelato and threw the rest away because I just did not want any more.  And then I had two small slices of the pizza and asked NinjaManFriend to take it home because I was done with it.  It makes me think there's some truth to the idea that processed foods and starches make you hungry.
• Eating Paleo and other perhaps-more-traditional healthy/lighter eating ideologies were not friends.
  One weekend, I went out to an Island with some girlfriends, including NinjaMuse, and we had a girls' weekend, just hanging out, gossiping, solving life's problems, reading, water sports, golf, movies, drinking wine, and cooking together.  We wanted to grill out one night, and they purchased black bean burgers.  I love a good black bean burger.  As far as I am concerned, it always beats out other regular veggie burgers, and it's a delicious "lighter" burger.  Black beans... legumes... not Paleo-friendly.  So that night I ate a salad.  What was funny was when we realized that just regular ground beef, for regular burgers, which was not as traditionally eating-light-friendly, was something I would easily have been able to eat off the grill.  It was an interesting realization.
• In the end, I broke my Challenge for emotional reasons.  I was overwhelmed and was just having one of those days and I just wanted to stop.  However, my body was SO happy when I was eating Paleo.  So. Happy.

It's definitely left me with a whole new arsenal of great cooking and skills, especially for days when I'm feeling just laden with processing and physical sadness.  Now, next to my Olive Oil and Sesame Oil, I have Coconut Oil.  I prioritize going to the local market to get meat from the butcher there.  

---

As usual with my eating challenges, I attempted to eat out while still eating Paleo.  I didn't venture into tastings, and obviously didn't bother dealing with it when it came to a traditional Italian dinner or a large overly-indulgent Chinese banquet luncheon.  But there were two restaurants I went to while eating Paleo and it was not terrible.  Honestly, I took an ignorant stance when it came to certain things (for instance, I did not bother to ask if something was cooked in vegetable or corn oil).  But ultimately, it was not too hard to find at least one thing on the menu I could eat, if even just with a quick side substitution here or there.

801 9th St. NW

414 H St. NE

Both restaurants - Cuba Libre and Boundary Road (I have a very special place in my heart for Boundary Road, a neighborhood haunt that I go to... often) -  were fantastic.  At each restaurant, I ordered steak options, with sides of some kind of vegetable (at Cuba Libre, I had some yucca with my steak, and I just decided on spot that it was a tuber; at Boundary Road there was kale and cauliflower).  And how great that my Paleo-diet allowed for wine!  Magnifique.

---

Next: November Challenge: Weight-Loss Motivated Shopping Freeze with Goal Deadline of Black Friday, via Fresh Cooking and Routine Update

RECIPE: NinjaMom's Simple Noodles (Vegan)

For my name day, I was in the middle of my vegan challenge, when I decided to host a vegan brunch.  My parents provided some food as a gift.  Included was this ridiculous amount of noodles my mom made - they were served cold, but you can eat them either cold or warm.  Also, as a Chinese person, there's not really an exactness to this recipe - so I made it myself later, having called her, and attempted to approximate these quantities for this recipe.  (The next time I make this, I will update with photos).

Ingredients:

• 1 box spaghetti
• 1 bunch scallions/green onion/spring onions (whatever you would like to call them), chopped
• 1/2 to 1 head of garlic (this is based on your preferences), sliced
• 3-5 Tbsp soy sauce
• 3-5 Tbsp vegetable/canola oil

How To:

1. In a pot, bring water to boil, and cook pasta according to package instructions (I'd only go al dente).
2. Meanwhile, in a saute pan, heat the oil.  Keep heat about medium-high.  Add the scallions.
3. Saute the scallions until they brown, stirring a lot, and taking about 5-7 minutes.
4. Add the garlic.  Continue to stir it all together about 3 minutes to pull out all of the garlic flavor.  (Try not to burn your garlic).
5. Add the soy sauce.  Let this cook down for another 3-5 minutes.
6. Drain pasta, and add to large bowl.
7. Turn off heat on the "sauce" and get it all into the bowl with the pasta.  Toss.
8. Eat.  Be happy.

I'm baaaack. New Challenge. Overdue Wrap-up.

Hi friends!

My sincerest apologies for my long-delayed update - I got caught up with exams, and then the summer came and went incredibly fast (of course), and between work and catching up with friends - things got a little hectic (and I also put on a little weight - more on that later).  But I am officially saving myself 10 hours of commuting per week by now teleworking.  I am still working while I attend classes at night, but that extra ten hours is a life saver.  And in so doing, I've taken on a new challenge, but want to first give you the wrap up I owed you from months ago.

Last year, during the 46 calendar days leading up to Easter known was Lent, I went Vegan as a 46-day challenge to myself.  I took it on kind of out of curiosity, as a chick who likes to eat and likes meat and cheese and eggs.  I did it while I was training to achieve my PR at a half marathon and ten miler.

Overall, the only real tip I have for anyone who chooses to take on a similar Vegan Challenge, given to me from my most amazing crunchy granola friend, is to KEEP IT SIMPLE.  

I'm being serious.  Are you listening?  Don't. get. fancy.  Not if you are just trying to take on veganism as a meat/dairy eater for X-days.  Of course, do what you must to have fun, and if that means complicated recipes, then by all means.  But I'd also suggest keeping a storage of simplicity so you don't go hungry.

My birthday happened to take place over Lent/during my challenge, and I decided to host a boozey vegan brunch full of friends and vegan food.  People either brought wine or something vegan.  A lot of salads were contributed, as well as a vegan strawberry rhubarb pie!  My parents also contributed to my name day with some noodles my mom made (amazing, recipe here), vegetarian spring rolls, and scallion pancakes (all animal free!).  Myself - I didn't follow my own advice, and I got fancy.  I made some kind of vegetable skewers, and I made a vegan sausage.   The sausage was phenomenal.  Where simplicity didn't happen, and thereby where things got weird... was my attempt at vegan quiche.  It had kind of a weird crust and a filling of tofu and nutritional yeast that had trouble setting.  It was not delicious.  I recommend it to no one and actually told my guests not to try it.  Moral of the story - KEEP IT SIMPLE.

Looking back, I began to get craving-whiny around Day 27.  That's when I just wanted to eat things with meat and eggs and dairy... and was getting tired of being that girl at restaurants when I went out.  Also, Lent, which is sold as 40 days... is actually 46 days.  I learned this on about Day 38, when I was ready feed a man a bunch of bacon and then eat him.  My take on turducken.  (Disclaimer: I am not actually a cannibal - that was a joke).

My apologies, and gratitude for your patience, to those of you who sat through my suffering - which consisted mostly of me talking about the non-vegan food I planned to eat come Easter.

All whining aside - I really enjoyed my vegan challenge.  I will never just become a vegan.  Sorry - I don't have that in me.  But I can see a vegan week here or there.  At the very least, I understand HOW to eat like a vegan, and can apply that whenever I want to.  I definitely think that my body just felt happier - when I made sure to stick to cooking foods (as opposed to frozen vegan items) - it felt less processed and less stuffed.  While I couldn't do it forever, I do believe there are body-benefits to it, and now I can pocket that into my purse of eating skills.

I do think veganism is difficult in a lot of restaurants (and vending machines).  I saw a bag of salt and vinegar potato kettle chips that "contained dairy."  WHO KNEW.  But I took it on as another facet to my challenge, that I tried to keep eating out with friends (saved certain meals, with tasting menus, for post-Easter though) to see how to do it.  I already have a few restaurant reviews, regarding Austin, TX, and Matchbox DC (Capitol Hill).  I'm going to finish this Vegan Challenge Wrap-up with a few more reviews, linked below:

• La Loma (on Capitol Hill, Mass. Ave.)
• Argonaut (H St. NE, Atlas District)

Additionally, I tried to go to happy hour during my Spring Break, or catch some birthday celebrations after classes, which coincided with Veganism.  My veganism, personally, led to a weakened tolerance for alcohol, so that was something to watch out for.  When you are a person who loves meat and cheese and food - and you decide to go vegan - you should probably understand that you are going to sometimes end up feeling the effects of alcohol faster.  Maybe it's if you're losing weight.  But I'm going to say 70% of the "problem" is that you won't be able to also EAT at happy hour.  At least... this was my experience.  At some point, I went to a birthday celebration at Fado, in Chinatown/Gallery Place, and literally in order to be able to eat, I had to ask for a plate of the celery sticks they serve with their wings... but sans the wings.  So my dinner was celery and beer.  True story.

I also learned, with situations like Chinese takeout, how to phrase questions.  I had to be very direct over the phone: "Are there eggs in this rice noodle dish? I WANT IT WITHOUT EGGS."  A lot of nights when I had no food in my house, and wasn't sure what to do, became days I called to order Vegetable Taiwanese Style Fried Rice Noodles, WITHOUT EGGS.  (The difference between Taiwanese Style and Singapore Style is that the latter has includes curry).  
Also, for Asian take-out/delivery, veganized:  
Caution, because I'd almost forgotten but was quickly reminded: Noodles for lo mein and chow mein have eggs in them.  That is why they are yellow.  You are safe with rice noodles that are disclosed as rice noodles, including pho (rice noodles) and chow fun (rice noodles).

---

NEXT TIME:   New Challenge: 30 Days Paleo.

Vegan-at-a-Restaurant: Argonaut (H St, Atlas District)

I live near enough to H Street that it has become my jam.  I love making my way up and down H Street, and something new seems to open every other week (this is actually an exaggeration).

The Argonaut is down in the Atlas District, pretty much all the way down the part of H Street full of bars, restaurants, and merriment (the 14th block).

I am actually going to start this review with its out-of-5-vegan-stars rating:

The Argonaut was the only of the restaurants I ventured to with friends during my Vegan Challenge that marked vegan options in its Dinner Menu.

If you view this menu, however, there's only one item marked definitively as vegan - and a few of the others can be made vegan.  So the selection was still limited.

That said, the black bean soup is great.  It's got a spicy kick to it.  It has the perfect texture (I do not like my black bean soup to be too smooth or too chunky; I am quite picky about this - I own that fact).  The only thing that could make it better would be to throw some slices of avocado on top.  But really, this soup did NOT disappoint.  

I also got the tempeh tacos, without the cheddar cheese - and they were tasty.  I think with substances like tempeh, you generally know you're not eating meat.  But they had a good bite to them, were well-seasoned, and I got the guacamole (which was exactly what I needed).  I can no longer remember if the slaw was vegan-friendly.  However, the tacos had good flavor, and were a fun complement to the black bean soup which is really what stole the show.

Pros:

• Vegan items marked on menu.
• Appropriate amounts of seasoning.
• Beer.
• Accommodating to my requests regarding subtractions/adjustments so my meal could be vegan.

Cons:

• Vegan selection very limited.
• Really.  Very limited.

Vegan-at-a-Restaurant Review: La Loma (on Capitol Hill, Mass. Ave.)

Whenever I take on a food challenge, I try not to let it affect my life as far as going out with friends, or forcing me to be demanding about where we eat.  Operation: Vegan... presented quite the challenge.

I live by a stretch of restaurants on Massachusetts Avenue - La Loma, Bistro Cacao, and Cafe Berlin.  La Loma is a place some of us like to meet up because they keep their margaritas flowing, and food is fine.

My vegan restaurant experience proved to be kind of annoying.  Not enough restaurants have vegan menus, and many of them have a hard time processing my questions (which then also makes me feel like a d-bag).  By the time friends and I were enjoying a margarita-ful night out at La Loma, we'd reached the period when I would ask to smell NinjaManFriend's food whenever he would get things like steak and cheese and eggs, sauteed into glory.

Here's the thing people don't talk about when it comes to handmade tortillas - a lot of them contain lard.  Lard comes from animals.  But I think I tried to ask and just decided they were okay.

So I began the meal sticking mostly to the chips and salsa and this order of guacamole.  I was planning, originally, to just put guacamole in tortillas, and call it a dinner.

I think usually La Loma's guacamole is about a 6 on a scale of 1-10... but for some reason that evening, it was about a 3.  It had a weird flavor to it I could not identify.

I cannot remember, but I believe there was a question as to whether the vegetables for the vegetable fajitas were cooked in butter.  I have this feeling they were not okay and I got guacamole, tortillas, and a side of black beans (as opposed to other frijoles which are usually cooked with pork at restaurants, they were safe).  Or maybe I did get the vegetable fajitas...

The moral of the story is that I probably broke a lot of vegan rules, without meaning to, in order to eat dinner at La Loma.  My questions relating to butter and checking if there was animal fat in the beans... were confusing.  So I simply ignored it for the sake of being able to eat with my endless margaritas.

Pros:

• Strong Margaritas - everybody's happy.
• Everyone else's food smelled great - everybody else is happy.

Cons:

• Weird guacamole - Ninja-sadness
• Probably wasn't totally vegan, though I tried - NinjaGuilt
• Was still hungry afterwards - Taste my sadness

Out of 5 vegan stars, La Loma scored only:

Sorry, La Loma.  I still love you for your meat and cheese and fat-rich foods... and obviously for your margaritas.  But when I was vegan, my feelings towards you were bittersweet.

The Final Week... and some Goal Updates

It's been awhile since my last post, and sadly, things have been hectic - though I do have a running list of all of the Vegan experiences I've had these past weeks, including several more restaurant reviews: La Loma (on Capitol Hill, Mass. Ave.); Argonaut (H St. NE, Atlas District); Happy Hours/Dinners at Bars including Chef Geoff's Downtown, Laughing Man Tavern, and Fado Irish Pub; Pho Bar and Grill (H St. NE, Atlas District) vs. Pho 14 (Columbia Heights); Chinese/Thai take out both in DC and VA.


This will all happen this week, as it is my final week of Veganism, as far as this Lentan challenge goes.


For now, I have some updates/reports regarding Goals I listed when I started this blog.


1)  Rock 'n Roll Half Marathon, DC, March 17, 2012:


GOALS SET AS:

• My reach goal is to break 2 hours (chip time).
• My "happy with it" goal is to PR (my lifetime PR was over a decade ago and part of a full marathon, but it was a 2:13).
• My "better than nothing; would be really disappointed if failed" goal is to finish faster and feeling better than the I did after the Nike Women's Half Marathon in October 2011 (2:22 and I felt pretty terrible both during and afterwards).

REPORT:

My finishing chip time was 2:09:53.  This means I did not hit my reach goal, but did achieve my "happy with it" goal.  Therefore, I am happy with it.

The race itself didn't feel that great for me, physically.  I'd accidentally taken a 2-week full taper.  This was definitely NOT a race where I negative split.  And I really lost steam at mile 11.  I think the reason I was most disappointed though was that the long runs I'd done all averaged about 9-15 seconds faster than I ended up averaging to finish the half.  Since my reach goal required a 9:04-minute mile, and I ended up pacing a 9:54-minute mile, even though I am "happy with it," it left me with an itch to keep going (*see #3 below).

2) Cherry Blossom Ten Miler, DC, April 1, 2012:

GOALS SET AS:

"2012 Goal: I'd like this to feel fantastic, as an extension of my half marathon training.  It's also on my birthday (April Fools' Day, because my life's a joke, har har), and it just needs to not be a constant decline each year. Finish time goal somewhere between 1:30 and 1:35."

REPORT:

Officially, my finishing chip time was 1:45:05.  I'm going ahead and calling it a 1:39:35, and here is why: I required that myself and my run-buddy stop at a set of a porta-johns.  We ended up being there for over 5 minutes -- we stood for a little bit, and then she checked her watch to note the time, and then when we were finally out of the line and out of the johns, and back on the race, it was 5 minutes passed when she last checked -- and I'm calling that a total stop time of 5:30 that would otherwise not have been a stop.  (Oh, and of course, and I had feared this would happen, about a half-mile later, we came upon a HUGE row of porta-johns, as opposed to the three we'd stopped at... without a line.  Of course.)  So if I call it a 1:39:35, I still did not reach my time goal and paced slower than the Half Marathon two weeks prior.  So as far as a time goal, I failed.

Cherry Blossom did not feel very good for me, but it did not feel terrible either, and there was no moment I thought "I cannot finish this."  And it's definitely my personal best Cherry Blossom, to erase the last two years of unpreparedness and injury.  In fact, at home, I even put this year's medal on top of/over the medal from 2010.

So I guess I would similarly qualify this one was "happy with it."

3)  *From Rock n Roll, and now from Cherry Blossom, I still need to hit my 9-minute pace goal, but also decided to make an overall life goal of an 8-minute pace for a half marathon.  But it is a life goal.  It will take time and proper training.  This was about 3 hours after I'd sworn off running that I was like "no, make a real goal for life."  Though for now, I'm taking a race break, and focusing back on general fitness and working that into my daily life.

Vegan Vacation: Austin, TX

A few weeks ago, I detailed my Lentan Challenge: Veganism.

This included three pre-planned BYE meals - simply because I'd planned for and/or paid for them before deciding to go Vegan for Lent.

As part of my Spring Break, I took a few days off of work, and went to visit a dear friend of mine who now resides in Austin, TX.  She lives very close to the Whole Foods featured in Top Chef Season 9: Texas, when the chefs were in Austin, which is also the Whole Foods Headquarters.  She also showed me that Austin, TX, is a very vegan-friendly city.

Additionally, two of my BYE meals were Austin meals.

---

---

First, the true Vegan options we really looked into were Whole Foods and Kerbey Lane Cafe.

This Whole Foods was amazing.  It was huge, and included things I don't normally see at Whole Foods (like clothing).  It also had a larger variety of bars and seatings than the local DC Whole Foods. I discovered their breakfast taco bar, which included vegan salsas and vegan chorizo.  I similarly discovered that the vegan soy nuggets (pre-packaged) at Whole Foods are amazing.  If you are otherwise a meat-lover, they taste a lot like really good chicken nuggets.

Kerbey Lane was a final day brunch experience.  They have a separate Vegan menu, so I got their breakfast combination which included: Tofu Scramble (like eggs), "Soysage" (soy sausage... totally worthwhile for its name, alone, but also quite delicious and sausagey), blueberry vegan pancakes.  We also ordered a "vegan queso" - which I think was probably a combination of cashews, nutritional yeast, and spices , but the spices really brought it together (I like anything with heat/a little kick).

---

We also went to Bess Bistro, which was not meant to be a vegan option (and is apparently Sandra Bullock's restaurant), but had vegan options!  I had a "Veggie Sandwich" for lunch, which was described as "marinated mushrooms, grilled red onion, squash, eggplant, artichoke and olive salad, aged provolone on focaccia" - I got it without the cheese, and the server was super kind to me and double checked that the focaccia was eggless.  The real money glue of the sandwich was the "artichoke and olive salad," which was tangy and greasy and superbly savory.

---

As I state above, I also had two of my BYE meals in Austin.

The first was saved for Top Chef Season 9's winner, Paul Qui (who is also coming to DC on March 31st, with one of the runners up, Edward Lee, to teach an "Asian Fusion Redefined" cooking class with wine pairing at Asia Nine, which is, in fact, my third/last BYE meal) - who is the Executive Chef at UCHIKO, and also has a set of food trucks, EAST SIDE KING.

 

We went to the Uchiko happy hour, and pretty much tried everything on their happy hour menu, including brussel sprouts, various pork belly dishes, and specialty sushi.

We then followed happy hour with real dinner by way of take-out from East Side King at the Liberty Bar.  There, we got "Poor Qui's Buns" (it took us hours to realize it's a word play like "poor [Chef] Qui" and also "porky"), Chicken Buns, and Beet Fries.

This extended dinner was phenomenal.  Everything was different - at Uchiko, the pork belly dishes all kind of melted in your mouth, and the brussel sprouts were tasty.  The specialty rolls were very much justly named in that they were special.  Meanwhile, at East Side King, the buns were pillowy, and the beet fries were substantial - thick, dense, delicious (as long as you like beets, and I love me some beets).  I preferred the pork buns over the chicken - I think it was the sauce.

The following day, we did some shopping, and then, in the middle of a huge thunderstorm, we stopped at the original Salt Lick (open pit Texas barbecue, at its finest, and also featured in Top Chef Season 9 - obviously I am a Top Chef fan).  There, instead of trying to decide among my options, I just got a platter.  The sausage and the ribs were delicious, but my heart really was with the brisket (I was advised to request burnt ends as well, with the caramelized burnt bits) and the turkey.  I also LOVED their sides.  The coleslaw was not this mayonnaisey lump of slaw, but rather this very refreshing light slaw with sesame seeds.  Additionally, the potato salad included more mustard than mayonnaise.  I was a huge fan.

My only regret is that my Vegan BYES were liberal with the meat, but included no eggs, cheese, or other dairy (which are things I truly want to eat all of the time).

Perhaps the cooking class will include some bibimbap (fried egg on top).

Vegan-at-Restaurant Review: Matchbox, Capitol Hill

When I announced to my boyfriend, whom I've coined NinjaManFriend (to go with my pseudonym of VentiSkimNinja), that I was going Vegan for Lent - there were several reactions.  He'd just watched the documentary "Forks over Knives," and was cutting back on animal proteins, himself, so he said it was well-timed.  He also joked that I've now eliminated us going out until Easter (idea being: save money by not eating out because what's there to eat).  Well!  Who am I to let my challenge stand in the way of friends and socializing?  So I decided to share what I can from my restaurant experiences during this challenge.

Note/Disclaimer: I am, in no way, affiliated to any restaurants mentioned in this blog, other than as a loving patron.

Vegan-at-Restaurant Challenge #1:

BRUNCH at Matchbox on Capitol Hill:

This past weekend, some friends I decided to meet up in Eastern Market/Barracks Row for one meal that I think is a key piece of DC foodie culture (both classic and trendy, and done so many different ways, and generally delicious): Sunday Brunch.

We ended up at Matchbox (521 8th St, SE).

I had scoped many of the restaurant's menus, and didn't have super high hopes for vegan options.  But it wasn't a "buy" meal, so I wanted/needed to just make it work.

Our server was super nice to me about it, especially considering I pretty much introduced myself as "I'm sorry I'm going to be a pain in your ass, but I just went vegan for 40 days, and have to ask you a lot of questions." 

By this point, I'd narrowed down the few options that seemed to have vegan potential.

On the actual brunch menu, there are no vegan courses.  It's brunch - so there are a lot of eggs involved, and meats, and butter, and cream.  As a result, I looked straight to the sides, where it seemed my vegan-potential was in the seasonal fruit, the ciabatta with butter (if hold the butter), and maybe the breakfast potatoes.  I also looked at the regular menu and saw two salads: a three-beet salad (hold the goat cheese fritters), and a warm mushroom and lentil salad.

So our server took this list of potential (thank you, and I'm sorry I didn't remember your name, because you were so good to me) - and brought back the following report:

• Breakfast potatoes - cooked in butter = No go.
• Ciabatta bread is from a distributor, unsure what's in it = No go, to be safe.
• Beet salad is fine if hold the goat cheese fritters = Safe, without goat cheese.
• Warm mushroom salad is fine but comes with fried something (I think carrots) that are fried in the same oil that fries meat = Safe, but hold the fried garnish to be legitimate.

So I asked him which of the salads he preferred, and he said definitely the mushroom.  Ordered.

He did not steer me wrong. 

The "warm mushroom salad" of "chanterelle, oyster & cremini mushrooms / swiss chard / red lentils / fingerling potatoes / sherry vinaigrette," for $12, was delicious.  It was subtle and earthy, and provided good brunch warmth, with this really hearty seasoning.  The lentils and swiss chard were both really great complements to the mushrooms.

It was small though.  When ServerDude, maybe jokingly/maybe no, asked if I wanted to order another, I almost jumped at the chance with a resounding "yes!" but refrained because we were planning to walk through the market and I thought there would be other vendor food I could buy (this proved to be a mistake when everything had eggs or butter in it... other than pickles).

Overall Vegan Report: Matchbox:  

 (out of 5 veggie-stars)

• Though the vegan-able options were delicious, the selection was incredibly limited.
• Left happy but still hungry.
• Server was incredibly helpful.

Funniest exchange during meal:

After I finally place my order, ServerDude turns to NinjaManFriend, who orders the steak and eggs.  ServerDude asks "how would you like that [steak] cooked?" and NinjaManFriend answers, "Vegan."  Zing!  Point.

---

---

ADDENDUM added March 13, 2012:


I returned to Matchbox for another brunch after a trip to Austin (a vegan friendly city where I had two of my pre-planned Vegan BYE meals, to be featured in my next post).

I had the same server (Chris), who remembered me and told me the Chef also remembered my vegan questions.

Matchbox officially gets another veggie-star, totaling it at 3:


Here's why:
It turns out there is no dairy (no eggs, which was the big surprise to me) in the Matchbox pizza dough.

There is a vegetable pizza, that generally is made with pesto and cheese and EVOO (with vegetables on top) - I got it without the cheese, and with red sauce instead of pesto (since there is cheese in the pesto).

It was fantastic.  And I wasn't still hungry upon exiting the restaurant.

So now the list of vegan-friendly brunchable items at Matchbox:
- Fruit
- Beet salad, without the goat cheese fritters
- Mushroom salad, warm, without the fried carrots
- Vegetable pizza, no cheese, and replace pesto with red sauce