There are only 22 days left until Thanksgiving, but who’s counting? Yup – “it can’t come soon enough” is how I’m feeling right about now. In fact, I have been looking up recipes to make for our lovely feast – that’s how much I can’t wait to eat sweets again. This is where short-term loss for long- term gain comes in. Sometimes, we need to suffer now to reap the benefits later – or so I’ve been told. I really hope that wisdom is honest and sincere because if it’s not, I’ll be pissed at the end of this.

To fully and truly embark on this remarkable sugar-free journey, I imposed a new sticker rule for myself which goes as follows: “You do not get a sticker on your calendar if you do not follow your “Food Rules” AND “Exercise Rules” listed under November goals.” The end. I was fortunate enough to receive a sticker for yesterday, but I must say that it was a very painful procedure. I was pretty much exhausted all day and I had to crank out a three mile run – oh, and I had about 3 loads of laundry. How’s that for a cherry on top?! Nevertheless, I got it all done including; a beautifully crafted salad (Romaine, Belgian endives,Red Cabbage, Onion and Feta) for lunch today. All that with not one drop of sugar. Don’t underestimate your energy levels. The mind -over -matter principal greatly applies here.

Speaking of mind-over-matter, I’d like to also point out my daily temptations:

In case you all thought I had it easy. I think not! Try eating your salad with a sugar mountain like this staring at your face. “Eat me – Eat me” is what that says right there. My response: “I will win you.”

So, ladies and gents, the moral of this story is that you need to really fight those urges to cure your short-term cravings in order to reach your long-term success! This really applies to a lot of things in life (short-term loss for long-term gain) not necessarily the craving part, but you know what I mean! I know, I’m full of wisdom

Since it is hungry hump day, I’ll post a recipe I’m thinking about making for Thanksgiving – if I can wait that long. I’m all about simple food and simple ingredients.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Caramelized Onions and Pancetta – I’m salivating as I write this.

Ingredients:

Last night I ended the month with a mouth full of interesting flavors.

For starters:

*goat carpaccio . tongue-olive vinaigrette . smoked roe (yep, I tried raw goat)

*warm marinated olives (not that good)

*goat chorizo flatbread . ajvar . peppers . green tomato . apricot . fresh ricotta (Delicious)

*hen of the woods mushroom ragout. sweet potato agnolotti . shroom creme fraiche . capers (also delicious)

*braised beef tongue . masa . beef vinaigrette . salsa verde (Not good)

*wood oven roasted pig face . sunny side egg . tamarind . cilantro . potato stix (Delicious)

*roasted cauliflower . pickled peppers . pine nuts . mint (So good)

*confit goat belly . bourbon butter . lobster n’ crab . fennel (One of the best dishes)

*chickpeas fritters . eggplant-tomatillo caponata . crave brother’s mozzarella (One of my favorites)

*ham frittes . smoked tomato aioli . cheddar beer sauce (I mean any type of “frittes” has my heart)

Last but not least – Dessert.

*chocolate bouchon . foie fluff . salted toffee . milk chocolate  sorbet . gooseberry compote

*pork fat doughnuts . honey yogurt . carmelized figs . lemony eggplant . ham streusel

As you can see, the brownie was demolished. The doughnuts not so much. Overall, it was a fun experience! Glad I ended the month with a big overload of sugar and salt – this way I’ll have absolutely zero withdrawal today

*Food description is off of the Girl and the Goat website.

Alright, so my proposed goal was to wake up bright and early today to run. Yeah…… that didn’t happen. In my defense – I needed sleep and hoping to make it happen tonight after work.

I think I’ll point the finger to pms symptoms. They really do get the best of us. In fact, I downed a bag of peanut m&ms today after my chicken salad. I mean, I’m only human after all – what do you expect! Sometimes you just need to do what you gotta do and enjoy every minute of it – which I did at the time, but right now the bloat, sugar crash and headache really aren’t working out for me!

I really should have followed my tips on how to overcome situations like this, but I caved. All I want to do is curl up in a ball and go to sleep until Sunday. Instead, I have a loaded weekend full of activities so I have to just suck it up and gain my energy back somehow. To help gain energy you need to keep moving even though you don’t feel like it. So, when I’m having days like these I typically go for elliptical machines because they require less energy than running. It’s better than nothing, people!

My food hasn’t been the greatest (I cheated last night and today- for obvious reasons) but it could always be worse. So far, my favorite dish was the sweet potato concoction! In fact, last night I made it again and ate the entire sweet potato. Followed by two Greek cookies. This is not a joke, I assure you. Oh, and the no snack rule hasn’t been working out for me this week either. :/

Today is as follows:

• Breakfast: Whole wheat English Muffin with Peanut butter
• Lunch : Chicken salad and peanut M&Ms
• Dinner: I should probably starve until tomorrow – very unlikely given my appetite as of late.

On a lighter note, it’s FRIDAY!!! Freedom never smelled so good! I hope you all have a fantastic weekend planned too

Day one of “October Goals” and I’m proud to say mission was accomplished! After registering for my first 5k yesterday, I guess you could say I got a sudden burst of motivation. At work, I made a list of what I wanted to accomplish once I got home which was: run three miles outside, make dinner and lunch for the following day. That’s it. Those three simple things that sometimes just aren’t as simple as they sound.

To ensure that I did those three things –  these are the steps I took:

I have a very small window of energy when it comes to working out after work and I’m typically hungry once I get home (and if you know me when I’m hungry, you know it’s not pretty.) To solve this crisis, my first decision was to work out before dinner instead of after – this way I don’t have enough time to get lazy.

The next step was figuring out what I would eat for dinner and when to do it all. When I workout right after work -already slightly hungry- I know if I don’t have food ready once I’m done working out I will probably eat anything and everything in sight. So, to prevent this situation I first decided what I would eat based on ingredients I knew I had at home (sweet potatoes, red onion, bell peppers and yellow squash.) Then, I decided to do my own – similar- version of my friend Lea’s “Accidentally Indian” recipe.

When I got home, I immediately grabbed my ingredients and started chopping away. I had the ingredients ready to go in a few bowls – took about 5 minutes tops. Once I finished that, I changed into my workout clothes – grabbed a handful of Kashi heart to heart cereal because I was hungry – and ran out the door. It was an absolutely perfect running day! I went to a path by my house and ran three miles in 32 minutes!! I finished off with a mile walk to total a 45 minute workout.

As soon as I got home – clearly starving now – I got to work in the kitchen. No, I didn’t shower first. When I’m hungry there’s no time to do anything, but eat!

Ingredients:

• 2 small sweet potatoes (High in Vitamin A, lots of fiber too!)
• 1 yellow squash
• 1 red bell pepper 
• 1/2 red onion (helps reduce your risk of ovarian cancer and heart disease – can cause bloat, but who cares it’s delicious!)
• Feta Cheese
• Spices: salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, cayenne

Chop or slice all the ingredients. Separate the sweet potatoes, as those take a little longer to cook. I actually nuked my chopped sweet potatoes for a minute first, before putting them on a large skillet with a good amount of EVOO. Then I spiced them and let them cook on med/high heat for about 10 minutes. Flip them around half-way through. Take them off the skillet and put them in a bowl. Put the other cut up veggies in the skillet and cook those for 5-7 minutes on medium heat. Put the sweet potatoes back in for the last few minutes, top with some crumbled feta cheese and serve! It’s DE-LICIOUS and packed with nutrients!

I used enough ingredients so that I can make two servings and bring some for lunch tomorrow (which was my other goal, cook more so that I don’t eat out.) That’s the trick when preparing meals – you need to cook once and eat twice!

Overall, Monday went beautifully. I’m proud of myself and hope to keep the enthusiasm as high as it was yesterday. It wasn’t easy doing the run, but I kept repeating “change isn’t comfortable” and pushed myself to keep going. The end result was “I can totally do this!” and so can you!!

“With self-discipline most anything is possible.” — Theodore Roosevelt