3/5/14-Cheated with a bit of Oil

Stayed up near Newport Beach today. Regular hotel oatmeal with raisins for breakfast. Very watery oatmeal.

I ordered the Cali Roll from Au Lac ($12. Not enough for a full meal though, I was hungry shortly after) that I went to last night. It has pine nuts, bell pepper, avocado, cucumber, and I didn't know coconut until I just looked at their website right now, all as a sushi roll.  It was very good, the ginger it came with tasted a bit sour.

Dinner, I picked up from my favorite place, Native Foods Cafe. This is where I cheated, I ordered their fries. The spices on them are so good, I had a 2 hour drive home and fries are such a great snack on the road.  Must find a new great snack. And I need to find out what spies they use so I can make my own baked, no oil fries.

I also got their Moroccan Bowl, without oil so substituted black beans for the tofu and added kale. I felt funny ordering the rest of my stuff with no oil, then I add french fries to the order. Oh well, I cheated but at least I minimized the cheating. Ate half that bowl so have some for dinner tomorrow too. Also finished my Scotch Rocks with a lovely cup of the Mighty Leaf Tea.  Not pricey either: $8.95 for the salad (it's a meal, not a side salad), $11.95 for the Bowl and $1.95 for the fries.

I want to get a vegan cookbook with some really different types of recipes. Different types of cuisines, not just american or mexican food. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.  I think I will also order Rawsome Vegan Baking by Emily Von Euw. Her desserts look delicious. My hesitation is so many raw desserts use coconut, which if following the Engine2Diet, we should stay away from. Plus my husband is not a fan. One of the coaches on Engine2 said if used for baking substitute applesauce so I think I will get the book and go that route.

3/4/14-Awesome Food Today!

Before I get to my awesome dinner have to get through the beginning of the day:

I had to drive up to Newport Beach from San Diego for work today. Had an ezekial english muffin (saw them in the store for the first time yesterday so thought to try it) with almond butter and a banana. I did stop at Starbucks for a soy latte, they have become a new favorite of mine. I asked the workers, they said it is just espresso and soy milk so shouldn't be too bad for me, right?

I went to Mothers Market to pick up lunch before work. There is one right near the site I was going to today. Again, their fresh pre-made food all contained oil, except fruit salad. So I got some fruit salad (about $5.50 for a medium container) and a side salad. Good salad-had mushrooms, beets, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and cilantro-jalapeno dressing that had no oil. The dressing was pretty spicy, I liked it, made the salad that much more interesting. The salad came with brown rice. I thought that was weird (option was bread or brown rice) but nice addition (and all for $4.75. I think that is a great price for those items!). I had half the salad, a couple bites of the rice and half the fruit salad-coworker enjoyed the other half.

Before dinner I went to the hotel gym and the machines were used up so did 20 minutes of strength training instead of treadmill.

Now, dinner. I wanted to go to a really nice raw food restaurant I had tried before in Santa Ana called Au Naturaw. Good thing I tried calling and when that didn't work, checked Yelp-they closed! But Yelp showed me some other places around, I decided to try one called Au Lac (http://aulac.com/). Wow!! I will go there everytime I am up here, it was delicious. All vegan, their menu has a mixture of raw and cooked foods. Unfortunately all their pho has oil in the broth but I of course found other good options. I wanted to get so many things. From the server's suggestion, I got BBQ Pork Rolls (soy pork of course-$4) with a peanut sauce. They were delicious, came with 3 I ate them all pretty quickly. For my main I got raw curried rice ($15). It's soaked organic wild rice with a bunch of vegetables including zucchini pasta, cauliflower, avocado, cilantro, olives, crispy onions (I guess dehydrated?) and wonderful spices. I ate about half of it and was full (well that and I wanted to save room for the dessert).

Dessert, I got their Scotch on the Rocks ($7). It says scotch rocks on the receipt. I wonder what my manager will think when she reviews my expense report. Ordering scotch would be quite different for me. I wrote it's a dessert on the receipt but then thought liquor scotch could be a dessert so added cake :-)
It's actually a raw dessert- a butterscotch-macadamia filling with walnut crust and raspberry sauce. Oh my so nice. I have eaten half so far but the night is still young. I got it as take-out and the bag they gave me was this nice maroon canvas tote with their logo on it. I couldn't believe that's their take out bag, it's lovely!

I needed a really nice tasty restaurant where I can easily order food without oil, animal products, the dessert has no coconut either as many raw desserts too. I will just say I am very content tonight.

Day After the Challenge

I continued with this plant strong eating.  Worked in La Jolla today, I always stop at Whole Foods before work since it is right by it. I had my normal oatmeal for breakfast. Picked up a quinoa-brown rice-kale sushi roll and some pineapple for lunch.

For dinner I made quinoa with zucchini, kale and onion. That was very good and so easy to make. I will definitely make that again. I also baked a potato (like fries with lots of seasonings). I probably didn't need the potato, for some reason I just really felt like eating a potato.

Snack I had some homemade banana ice cream with cacao and mighty leaf tea.  I think I got some of those tea bags from VeganCuts (if you like snacking it is so fun to get a subscription through them. They send a box each month of different vegan snacks. I did cancel it a couple months ago since the products don't always follow Engine2 guidelines and wanted to work on cutting down on snacking). So anyway, I got some from a VeganCuts box, I'm pretty sure that's where they came from, and I love it. So I picked up some more from Whole Foods today.  Look at those pretty flowers in the picture here of one of the pouches.

I think following this way of eating will be pretty easy when traveling for work, and eating at home. It'll be more special occasions/vacations that are more difficult.  We'll see how it goes!

Day 28 - Last Day of the Challenge

Sunday was pretty productive. Breakfast I had the last 2 pancakes with berry sauce. Then I went and did some errands. Tony's sister, niece and nephew are coming to visit Friday from Ireland so went to get some snacks, food and drinks for them.  Someone at work is having a baby and it has been my thing to make a diaper cake/centerpiece for all the pregnant women at work. Below are the ones I made.  My mom does the embroidery on baby items so some of the items are done by her, the ones with the baby's name and such. The tiered more traditional cake is the one I made today.

Came back from errands late so had a 2pm lunch of broccolini and baked tofu. Tofu covered in whole wheat flour, nutritional yeast and garlic powder. I did have a snack before errands. I had a sweet tooth so mixed some almond butter with chocolate chips and a banana. Very tasty.

Made the diaper cake so didn't have dinner until 9pm. I really didn't feel like cooking then so I had a McDougall vegetable soup.

The weekend went way too fast!

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Day 27 - Only One More Day?!

Well, only one more day left to the challenge. I have been thinking about if I will continue with the plant-strong no oil diet. I feel like I mostly will but temptation will be there more to cheat. With this challenge I knew I had to blog about it and in my head the thought that it's a 28 challenge was always there. I am still working on losing weight though so that will be a motivator to continue, that and I think this is the healthiest diet (I'm just not sure if it really does hurt to cheat every once in awhile, a few times a year).

So for breakfast, I made whole wheat pancakes and a berry sauce on top.

 Lunch, I had a baked potato with some vegetables.  It was a lot of food so for dinner, I only made some baked onion rings and had it with ketchup.

Snack: An Engine2 Crispbread.

For exercise I did one of FitnessBlender's upper body workouts (12 minutes) and just half of one of the cardio workouts (15 minutes about).  I like that you can search for types of workouts and such. I am going to put together an exercise plan with their workouts to incorporate cardio, flexibility, strength training.  Just try that for awhile for a change.

Plant-Strong Pigs!

Very messy plant-strong pigs

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Day 26 - Another Day of Training and Glad it's Friday!

Last day of training in the hotel. More pastries with chocolate drizzle there, I brought my oatmeal and raisins.  Lunch, I had the same thing as yesterday, the Engine2 burger patty as a sandwich with their red pepper hummus. Had some melons and olives for a snack in the afternoon.

It was so rainy and windy today! I really just wanted noodle soup for dinner. I used to eat Annie Chung's miso udon noodle soup but white noodles. I decided to make my own. I don't have any soba noodles, only pasta I have is linguine, I thought to just try that. I am glad I have the miso paste. I just have to mix that with boiling water, add some veggies and it is tasty! I had the miso soup broth with spinach, carrots, tofu and cilantro.  Had 2 Happy Herbivore cookies (the last two) and some tea for a snack and one Engine2 crispbread.

Again I didn't exercise.  That will need to be my next goal--exercise when I am home. I am being good with the hotel gyms but I'm not always in a hotel (thank goodness).


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Day 25 - Training in San Diego

Today I had work training at a hotel next to our work office.  They provide us lunch and snacks and an email to let someone know if we have any dietary restrictions. I didn't email though. It's only 2 days of training, I thought it would be a bit much to ask for no animal products and no oil on top of that.  Last year when I had training at the same hotel it was for 5 weeks. We had a very nutrition and fitness conscious trainer.  I don't remember if I let them know I was vegan at that time, but there was a lot of steamed vegetables and salads I could eat. I was eating oil at that time.

This time, good thing I brought my own food-even the salad had cheese!
I had oatmeal and raisins for breakfast. At training they had pastries and fruit-I stuck with an apple and tea. Lunch, I made a sandwich. Engine2 burger on ezekial bread with Engine2 red pepper hummus, lettuce, tomato and cilantro. It was very tasty.
Snack in the afternoon, they brought us all chocolate! Chocolate candy bars, chocolate fudge and chocolate chip cookies. I had an orange...

Dinner, Tony suggested we go out. We had a $15 for $30 deal to Kensington Cafe. Tony goes there often for breakfast. I asked them if they could make something without oil. I had a side salad with balsamic vinegar and the main dish was red quinoa, zucchini, peas and kale. It was really tasty but not a lot of vegetables. A dish I can make at home, I'll just add a lot more vegetables.

I didn't exercise today. I am noticing I am having a hard time exercising when at home! Granted, by the time I got home from training it was after 6pm, and we went to dinner right away. But yeah, lazy excuses.  It's something I will just keep working on!


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