Foodie and the Beast: double, double toil-et trouble

Nate, my best half – my best everything, really - and I don’t see eye to eye when it comes to eating. He thinks food is a way of fueling the body to do weird stuff like run, even though no one is chasing him or forcing him at gunpoint to do so. I think of food as a good friend who is always there when I need them, my best go-to pal for when the world is being mean and stupid…which is why I’m fat and he’s not.

 

As Paula Abdul once said, "I'm forever your girl" - oh, and "Opposites Attract" too

 

 

Our Sunday began like this:

 Me: Let’s go get some pies.

Nate: No, we are not getting any pie.  

Me: Piiiessss. Plural.

Nate: We are not getting any pies.

Me: You hate me. You are killing my dream.

Nate: No. You’re killing yourself.

 

Ohhhhh, SNAP. Homeboy got me there.

 

Is he right? Well, yes. Did I force him into submission by threatening to jump out of the moving vehicle?  Not this time. He doesn’t believe me anymore when I say that anyway. Did I pull every other trick from the Book of Crazy to try and get him to feel sorry for me? Absolutely.

 

Here are the highlights:

·  Do you remember Ewan McGregor in “Trainspotting”? You’re making me be him right now.  

·   You’re not my friend.

·   Why did I marry someone with so much hate in their heart?

·   I’m not wearing any underpants.  

·   I bet that guy over there would buy me pie. (Nate: That’s not even a guy. That’s a PICTURE of a guy on a giant billboard and he doesn’t know you).

·  You don’t love me. (Nate: If you can’t see that I’m doing this because I DO love you, you’re insane. I just want you to stick around for a long, long time.)

All this mostly one-sided dialog, and I didn’t even notice we had driven 30 minutes past the pie place.

 

3144 W Adams St, Santa Ana, CA 92704


I survived, just like he said I would. Sure I was mad, but looking back on this discussion now with a brand new Monday under my too-tight belt, I appreciate that he stood his ground squaring off against my food addiction. I’m a pretty formidable opponent. But then again, so is he.

Krav Maga - yellow belt ceremony

 

Nate really is such a good egg and he rarely gets upset with me, even when I make him drive home from wherever we are – no matter how far we are - to use the toilet (since the thought of dropping a deuce anywhere but the confines of my own bathroom makes me cry). I mean, we could be in Germany and I'd ask him to take me home. Would he? Jesus, no, of course not! He draws the line at international.

 

I do so appreciate him though. He got me this little gift over the weekend with a reminder to make wise decisions in life.

Side note:  the one time I made an honest attempt to use a public restroom, someone followed behind me, and out of the 10 stalls that were completely open, took the one right next door. BUT FOR WHY!!!

 Well, she must have been suffering from stage fright too, because we both sat there for 2 minutes straight rustling toilet paper, tapping our feet, and fake coughing our way through the impending doo(m). Alas, after the 5^th minute of our clumsy attempt at a pas de deux-doo, during which time many others had bravely come and gone, I realized I had met my match. I pulled up my pants, tipped my hat to the winner of the universe, and drove my own ass home.

And on that note, I present to you:

 

Baked Brownie Birthday Cake Oatmeal!

Ta-da! I want to stick my face in you every day!

 

This was truly delicious. It tasted just like a brownie! I believe in the Internetz again! The base recipe calls for:

·         1/3 c of oats

·         2 tbsp flour

·         1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

·         ¼ tsp baking powder

·         A little salt

·         1/3 c of almond milk

·         ½ tbsp honey

·         1 tsp of melted coconut oil

·         1 tsp vanilla

    ·         Chocolate chips (I used milk)

 

I added:

·         A handful of chopped pecans

·         A few mini marshmallows

·         Sprinkles and more chocolate chips

 

Mix all this crap together, throw it in a greased ramekin (I used 2), and bake at 325 for about 15 minutes.

 

Can you guess which one's for me and which one’s for Nate?

 

 

 

 

 

Misadventures in baking: Hello...from me and Adele and some muffins

 

When it comes to weight loss, I know myself. I put all 115 lbs of ME into almost everything I do.

Ok, let’s start again because I can’t even type that with a straight face. I haven't seen 115 since the big amoebic dysentery fiasco of 1994.

 

More like 115 lbs of LAUNDRY

 

I know myself. When it comes to trying to lose weight, I put 100% into almost everything I do - - - at the beginning of each venture, that is.  Then things start to get hard: work gets stressful…the smallest of victories need celebrating (denying myself pizza at lunch means I can have cake and ice cream and spaghetti and butter fried chicken all rolled into one, big, fat-ass rice wrapped burrito for dinner)….memories and thoughts of what could and should be cause mental and emotional breakdowns…whatever. Pick your poison. Life happens. I’m as good at staying the damn course as a Kardashian is at saying no to plastic surgery. And sex tapes.

The hell is this?



 

The other night, as I was eating an old burrito I found in the back of the fridge and questioning most of my life decisions apart from marrying Nate, I realized, “WTF – I’m eating an old burrito over the kitchen sink at midnight. How do I expect to belt out Adele’s new song “Hello” to my former fat self when clearly there’s nothing "former" about this situation? I’m not on the other side with you yet, Adele! I can’t even say at least I tried! I totally suck at this song!”

Hello from the side I never left?

And so it was time to change course. Again. Steer myself away from the carnage asada. So what better way to do that than to make carrot raisin mini muffins using oat flour, stevia, and organic maple syrup for breakfast the next day?

 

I'm only pretty on the outside, but I pretty much taste like feces 

Oh, Internet – sometimes you lie. You lie so bad. Sometimes I find recipes that sound good in theory, but should never be put into culinary action. This was one of them. Of course, it could be me not understanding how stevia works exactly, and how many packets should be substituted for actual sugar. With more sweetener, these could’ve worked. They were super moist, but the only burst of sweetness came from the raisins. Who in the hell wants a mouthful of raisins?

So – this recipe definitely needs improvement before I share it. I’m a big fan of oat and almond flour these days, though! Do these substitutions taste as good as the real deal? HELL NO. But if you don’t want diabetes and you don’t want cancer and you DO want to have a baby before your biological clock starts belting out “Hello from the other side”, it’s time to stop with the bad shit. Again.

Apparently, I like hanging out in my garage

 

Where ya been all my life, almond flour?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Misadventures in cooking - tonight's guests: Justin Bieber and Drake

You are the jalapeno of my eye

I thought this chicken tortilla soup would be quick and easy. But now, with an eyeball full of jalapeno juice and my nasal passages burning with the heat of a thousand Pablo Escobar like suns (I’m kidding. I have no idea if cocaine is a hell of a drug), I will never trust myself again. 

It’s not entirely my fault, though. I blame Justin Bieber. Drake, too.  While pinching the bridge of my nose and furiously shaking my head at the rando choice of YouTube channel I selected as background music for my live action cooking show – audience of ZERO, go figure - I managed to get some jalapeno in my eye.

See, our wifi at home sucks. Almost as much as the music of today’s youth....almost. There were two songs that lasted about 10 minutes EACH due to that buffering thing going extra long and hard for me this evening: Justin Bieber’s “What Do You Mean” and Drake’s “Hotline Bling”. 

FML – this is music???  Partially blinded by jalapeno juice and oxygen deprived due to an inability to inhale, I started to hallucinate and carried on a conversation in my head with these dumb-dumbs:

Bieber: What do you mean?

Me: What do you mean what do I mean?

Bieber: What do you mean? First you wanna go to the left then you wanna turn right.

Me: WHAT? WE’RE NOT EVEN DRIVING RIGHT NOW.

What do you mean? What do you mean???

 

And then there was Drake:

Drake: You used to call me on my cell phone.

Me: Well, I’m more comfortable using text as a medium.

Drake: You used to call me on my cell phone.

Me: No, really…I’m funnier in writing.

Drake: You used to call me on my cell phone.

Me:  This is getting awkward.

I has cellphone

 

 



Despite all this musical nonsense, my homemade chicken tortilla soup turned out delicious! If you follow me on Instagram, you know my ass has been working hard at eating clean these days. I’ve been cooking at home almost every day, and not only saving money, but saving my damn life! One almond flour recipe at a time. I’ve practically eliminated white rice and white sugar from my diet, and even though it makes me want to choke a bitch and cut a vato at various times throughout the day, it has gotten easier. I even hiked last weekend with a minimal amount of belligerence towards Nate.

 

There's a buffet up there on Mt. Baldy!

 



Speaking of my best half and how our lives imitate (F)art, this happened when he got home from his Krav Maga class:

Me: I got jalapeno in my eye.

Nate: Why did you put jalapeno in your eye?

Me: What do you mean?

Nate: I mean, why did you put jalapeno in your eye?

Me:  You used to call me on your cell phone.

Nate: WHAT DO YOU MEAN???

Touché, Bieber. Touché.  

 

The soup that burned my eye

http://www.food.com/recipe/the-best-chicken-tortilla-soup-104086

 

I can't call you on your cellphone right now Drake, I'm on a bike.

 

Snap back to reality...oh, there goes gravity.

When I was a little girl, I was really into gymnastics. Like, super into gymnastics. The TV movie “Nadia” was my jam and I memorized every single scene from start to finish, wearing out that Beta tape the same way I would eventually wear out my cassette single of “Please Don’t Go Girl” by New Kids on the Block a few years later.

 

I'm not going anywhere, Joey McIntyre!

I’m still super into gymnastics, and in my head it’s Cold War times and I’m able to do one-handed cartwheels and round off back hand springs like whoa…or как стоп, as they say in Russian Google.

Girl, do not drink the bleach! Do not drink the...you drank the bleach.

 

Side note: I have never again attempted a back hand spring since the time I nearly broke my hip springing every which way but “back” into our swimming pool.

Alas, reality is so very, very different than the moving picture show playing in my mind to a Montell Jordan/Eminem soundtrack. And as usual, a part of me has paid the price for this particular type of lunacy. No – not my ego like the time I bent myself backwards over the edge of the sofa to see how far I could go and the whole damn thing came crashing down on top of me because it was NOT about that bass. Nope. I sprained my ankle while doing a military style exercise…aka running.

 

Oh, body – falling apart in so many ways. Keep on keepin’ it real!

Reality is hard, and the month of October always seems to bring that fact into laser sharp focus.

Life has been fast and furious, and in less than a week it will be three years since we had, and lost, Ligaya. It’s hard not to feel cheated by whoever or whatever is keeping the universe in check.  It’s hard not to be angry at God, yet at the same time bow my head and beg for another blessing. It’s hard not to ask that she just be allowed to come back.

It’s. Just. Hard.

I say this every year - that the passage of time doesn’t make it easier.  I’ve just learned how to adapt to this new normal… manage it… bend without breaking. Keep on living. That’s some real-life gymnastics right there.  

 

This is how we do it.

Please. Be gentle with me this month if you see me coming your way. I may think of myself as a more rotund, Filipino version of Ronda Rousey crushing that mountain of grief beneath the heel of my temporary ankle boot (here we go again with the distorted view of my (in)abilities), but I’m just a mom  who is missing her baby girl very, very much.

That is my reality.

 

Love, Light and Ligaya - CS

Naked and afraid and hunting hobbits as I go

Nate and I have been wildly addicted to the reality show Naked and Afraid. But after months of hearing his repeated, and a bit TOO dramatic if you ask me, protestations of “NO, I do not think you would be good on that show even if it was just called Afraid,” I set out to prove him wrong on our trip to Alaska. I mean, come on.  Me? I'M not a valuable resource in a survivalist situation? Ok, former Army guy....like Simply Red once said, "If you don't know me by now...."

1.        I’m strong. I can snap a grown man’s neck with my calves alone.

 

2.       I keep a cool head in the face of pandemonium  (until I’m pushed so far that the fists of fury come out).

Enjoy this sideways photo of me. I can't figure out how to make it go the right way.

 

3.       Due to my body’s inability to metabolize fat in an efficient way, I have multiple layers of insulation to keep me warm in extreme cold.  

 

4.       Due to my body’s inability to metabolize fat in an efficient way, my multiple layers of insulation could feed a whole village for months if they were into that sort of thing. How’s that for teamwork?

Let’s just skip over some of the other small things that require a bit more practice on my end…like starting a fire, hunting for food, pooping in a hole, etc. 

Anyway, while packing for our trip, I started fantasizing about the millions of ways I could prove I was an outdoorsy person ready to take on the Alaskan frontier (on the days we weren’t on the cruise ship, of course). Hiking Denali, getting a bald eagle to land on my shoulder, kickin’ it with orcas, sledding with dogs (actually did this one), communing with bears, to name a few.

The opportunity to show my true grit presented itself in Skagway. At my insistence, we stopped by the National Park Service office to pick up a trail map for a grand hiking adventure. After determining that “Lower Lake” didn’t look that far away, and that we had enough time to complete the hike before a train ride up the White Pass, I led the charge.

5 minutes into the hike up the mountain to get to Lower Lake, I started questioning the validity of the map. Why in the hell was it called Lower when we were upward bound?  10 minutes in I started projecting hateful thoughts towards whoever made hiking a thing.  15 minutes in I started texting my athlete buddy Mai Dang who advised me to pretend I was hunting hobbits (that actually helped quite a bit).

Frodo? More like FroNO

 

20 minutes in and Nate gets the first of many “I need some ALONE TIME, just go on without me” speeches. He refused each time, saying I wasn’t about to blame him were I to be attacked by a bear. 

 

I hate everything

 

25 minutes in and I’m sweating the 50 degree weather and starting to rip off my clothes (I’ll show you naked and NOT afraid, just really mad). 30 minutes in and suddenly an 80 year old couple with boundless energy jogs by wearing matching knee braces. 

“You’re almost there, see you at the top!” they yell.

WAT

A burning ball of first world problem shame formed in my chest and propelled me to speed walk the final 10 minutes to Lower Lake. I made it hangry and exhausted and declared myself the winner of the world. All hail the conquering zero.

 

 

Ok, so I’m not going to be on Naked and Afraid any time soon.

Anyway, Alaska is truly beautiful – it’s like walking into a postcard everywhere you look.

 

 

One night we saw the Northern Lights and it was everything and nothing like I expected. It was the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a spirit – the way the green, pink, and purple lights danced and shimmered - it was as if they were playing with us. I reached out hoping…just hoping to capture the light in my fingertips for a few moments…praying to catch even just a glimpse of her. Of Ligaya.  

Ligaya. We’re getting into the tough months now. It will be three years on October 14th. Wow – three years. That seems like both a long time and no time at all to me. Last weekend when we were out and about in an entirely different frontier called Fashion Island, there was a brief moment when an incredibly heavy sadness sunk in. Suddenly, a little boy walked over and stood before me babbling to himself. The printed message on his t-shirt was bold and bright and said this: The Best is Yet to Come. Almost an hour later I saw the smallest hint of a rainbow in the sky.

 

A “rainbow baby” is a baby that is born following a miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death or infant loss. In the real world, a beautiful and bright rainbow follows a storm and gives hope of things getting better. The rainbow is more appreciated having just experienced the storm in comparison.

There was a certain stillness I found in Alaska – in my surroundings and in myself. A quiet I needed to revisit in order to prepare myself for the month to come. October is always hard, but I’ll survive it as I always do….neither naked nor afraid.

Side note: I’ve not talked about the wedding yet because even though it was 3 months ago, this bright and shiny day  is housed in a part of my brain I’m not ready to poke at just yet.  I want to keep it there for now until I really need the lift.  

 

Love, Light, and Ligaya - CS

Happy anniversary to the worst buffet partner ever!

Today is me and Nate’s anniversary, so of course I looked at that as an opportunity to celebrate all weekend. Hey, I’ve been pretty good about cooling it with the “let’s celebrate by eating my weight in cupcakes” mentality since I started working out semi-regularly. Considering that in the past, just waking up in the morning and breathing earned the sweet, sweet reward of a hot fudge shake and some tater tots from Sonic Burger, I’m doing pretty good keeping the food demons at bay….for the most part.

I love you. I need you. I want you. Always. Forever.

Now, if you know me and Nate, you can already guess that we have vastly different ideas of what “celebrating” actually means.  He proposed a mountain biking trip - I proposed an all-you-can-eat venue. And while we do always manage to meet somewhere in the middle (he mountain biked while I karate chopped gnats and folded origami cranes under the shade of an old oak tree; he simply ate while I all-I-can-ate), there are those moments where I question, WHO AM I MARRYING?

I don't know this man, but we share the same facial expression(s).

We started off our Saturday with a workout that kicked the absolute crap out of us. We pushed and pulled sleds, sledge hammered tires, monkeybarred (well, not me, as I have trouble flinging my bodyweight across a row of little metal bars), crawled, and rowed for an hour at Redefining Strength (the BEST gym ever). It was the perfect way to start the weekend as I’d been out the last 2 weeks due to a very busy work schedule and a bad knee. 

I kneed cake

The thing about starting the day off right is that I’m more apt to stay on track. BUT again, this being our anniversary weekend, I figured a treat was in order. 

Say hello to my little friend

I blame the wait in line (30 minutes!) and the rising cost of buffet prices for the debacle that came next (my first choice was Greenfield in Long Beach, a Brazilian churrascaria that now costs $38/per person WTF) . Oh, and the food addiction – there’s that to blame, as well. 

See, how it works at Sake 2 Me Sushi is that they give you a slip of paper that allows you to select the number of sushi pieces or rolls you want. You can do this over and over again! BUT – you do have to wait until they bring everything to you before you even see that form again.  I’m guessing that they figure a normal person will eat the first round and be judicious in their consideration of how much to order for the next -  but I’m not normal and I ordered double of everything before even digging into what they’d just brought….because obviously, I NEED THAT MUCH SUSHI IN MY LIFE.

Alas, I forgot I was with someone who is notorious for being bad at eating all that one can. Whenever we go to a Vegas buffet, he gets up at least  6 or 7 times, but only to shake his legs or refill his tiny anthill of peas and olives, slices of tomatoes, and strange cubes of cheese.  Trying to live up to my reputation as the #1 choice for team captain of no less than 5 all-you-can-eat crews,  I grossly miscalculated the number of pieces to order and ended up with approximately 50 pieces of sushi and rolls for the second round.

I was too embarrassed to take a picture.

With a look that I can only describe as a mix of disbelief and a hint of defiance, my best half dramatically cried “What have you done? You’re on your own!” to which I - even MORE dramatically replied -  “Then get ready to spend the next 6 hours here because we are not paying for leftovers!”  Well, homie refused to help, and over an hour later, we left with what little dignity I had left, an intense hatred of raw fish, and the lingering odor of soy sauce that has not abated after 2 full days in the shower.

I will never eat sushi again.

Since we are inordinately compatible, however, we made nice and ended the weekend with a mix of mountain biking, running, and all kinds of bad things like bread pudding, chocolate chip frappuccinos, the latest happy birthday frap from Starbucks, and chicken wings.

Happy birthday, Starbucks!!!

And far sweeter than any milkshake in the creation of the world – while riding out to show me a pretty spot at the wilderness park, he made sure to clear the path ahead of me so I wouldn’t crash and hurt my other knee. Then he bought me pancakes.

That’s who I’m marrying.

 Still suck at the selfie game tho

Screw calm. Train like a beast.

I'm sore....but I like it. Let's rewind to what got me here.

Last month, while lying in the supine position and folding my 800^th something paper crane, I was suddenly overtaken by the desire to knock out some crunches…like a hundred of them. After all, I’d once done a thousand in a row – never mind that I was 19 and full of vim and vigor and dreams of joining the cast of Miss Saigon at that golden period of my life.  Nope. I wanted to do a hundred right then and there because I wanted to show Nate, who has a slightly irritating habit of working out while watching TV, that I was basically still 19.

After assuring him that I GOT THIS, I went balls out and did 100 UGLY crunches that I’m sure were NOT RIGHT, and I ended up with my whole stomach area contracting into a gigantic ball of pain and suffering. I rolled myself into the fetal position and demanded that no one look or talk to me, to which Nate replied, “I’m the only one here, who are you talking to?”  I decided it would be highly beneficial to get a trainer after this, someone who could help me navigate the pitfalls of my own brain, body, and oh-so misguided ego.

Well, I finished my 2^nd week of training at Redefining Strength in Costa Mesa, and I have to say it was the best decision I've ever made! It is an awesome community of people who are just so supportive of one another and do not judge.  I finally feel at home in a gym! My trainer Cori is fantastic, and in just two weeks I have noticed a remarkable difference in my physical AND mental state. 

The guy so far up my ass on the freeway that I could time his nostril flares to the beat of “Shake It Off”? Well, I simply let him pass and didn’t even follow him home this time.  In the past, I’d go all 007 and find an address to send a picture of an eyeball to, just let him know someone was watching. Not this time, friends. Just pass me by, sir! 

I'm not watching you...or am I?

So, I’m sore as all get out - but this is the best kind of pain there is. I hurt in places I never thought I should ever hurt. Just when I think I’ve pushed my body to the limit, I discover that I have more to give. Amazing. Instead of chest pain or the odd stirrings of what may or may not be an unfortunate bout of diarrhea after a large meal, I instead feel blessed exhaustion from a total body workout. I’m sleeping better and eating better these days. My muscles are crying out for relief, but they are also getting stronger. My number of push-ups is increasing, my crunches no longer cause me any cramping, and I feel strong.

Nate and I played in our first softball game last Friday night and I took a hard ass fall on the way to 2^nd base. I hit the ground at full speed landing chest and stomach first, but I still managed to crawl to base. A collective gasp could be heard across the field and stands. After remembering that there’s no crying in baseball (but still crying inside in secret), I gave a double thumbs-up and kept playing. 

The next few days were torture. Not only was I sore from my workouts, I was now convinced that I had ruptured something internally or was in the process of slowly dying from a pulmonary embolism. We had no ice packs in the house, but since Nate is a resourceful person, he covered me in frozen bags of Trader Joe's linguini and gnocchi until I started to smell. I love him. 

Even with the pain, I decided I was fit enough for a Sunday hike to Holy Jim Falls Trail with Nate and our good friend Mai. I’m proud to say that I completed my first hike EVER! Usually when "we hike", I hide in a bush just to make Nate feel terrible about himself for leaving me so far behind or quit a few minutes in after threatening to punch every tree branch in the face. Not this time! I continued on and before I knew it, we’d reached the waterfall. Success! 

Wat. We thought it would be bigger. 

So that’s the recap of my training over the last two weeks. Like Tony! Toni! Tone! says, “It Feels Good”. As the current state of my life is chaos and laundry is only a sad afterthought,  I threw on the last pair of clean jeans I had left. While walking to the office, they started sliding down my hips. Instead of focusing on the fact that I’m wearing an outfit unbecoming of my position again, I am focusing on the fact that the last time I wore these, I had a crease in my belly that lasted for 48 hours. Holy Jim Falls Trail, does that mean I’m losing inches?!? Holla!