Weekend revelry & recovery

I was a good little San Josean this weekend and spent time supporting local businesses with some good friends.

One of those businesses was Vino Vino, a casual wine bar that has wine on tap (!), and is part of the new San Pedro Square Market development that opened late last year. There are TONS of very yummy-looking little eateries in the market and I read that they're going to start a farmer's market in April.

We ordered several carafes of wine, tried out the meat and cheese plates, and gobbled up these simple and delicious smoked salmon crostinis.

I believe this is just french bread (or sourdough) with cream cheese, smoked salmon, and a dab of pesto on top. Drool.

I thought I was not a Nutella fan, and I admit I was wrong.

We ordered a sandwich that had nutella, peanut butter and bananas on it, and it was the bomb. Our server said it's one of their most popular menu items. The salad that comes with it has a really tasty balsamic dressing, too.

I will be trying to replicate this at home.

Sunday was all about recovery. One thing about our friends, Catprick & Meagan -- I tend to overindulge when I am with them. Catprick pours with a heavy hand.

Firepot soup

I really love when a recipe ends up tasting like something delicious that you've eaten in a restaurant before.

I've had this Thai soup in one form or another in a variety of different Thai restaurants, since it's often served before a meal. I was completely thrilled that this recipe ended up tasting extraordinarily close to the restaurant version. But what made it better, in my opinion, is that this version is heartier. You can put shrimp, chicken, or tofu in it, and serve it over rice, and it's just the thing on a cold evening.

And, to boot, is ridiculously easy to make.

There are really only a handful of ingredients. You slap a few tablespoons of Thai curry in a hot pan with some canola oil, then throw in a can of coconut milk and some chicken stock. Next up comes your lemongrass, basil, a squeeze of lime, a little brown sugar, a little fish sauce, and Thai chilies, if you like it spicy. I do, but I couldn't find Thai chilies, so I settled on a jalapeno, which I think worked great. After that's all had about 10 minutes to simmer, I tossed in the tofu. I think it'd be magnificent with shrimp, but I'm boycotting shrimp until I can find raw, deveined shrimp. I just hate deveining.

 Once the soup's warm enough, just ladle it over some rice and scatter a few cilantro leaves on top. It's so delicious. Two thumbs up from both me and my husband.

This is an Eat, Live, Run recipe. I gotta say, she hasn't turned me wrong yet. She has a cookbook coming out relatively soon and methinks I will be buying it.

Killing bad habits & conceiving good habits

I know I've already mentioned this book, "Brain Over Binge," that I've been reading, and actually just finished last night. I've essentially been torturing everyone I know by telling them this book might be the key to curing all of our neuroses. Responses vary.

 I think if you are interested in really employing the technique the author recommends, you should read the book.

But I'll tell you about a few points that have really hit home with me.

1. Diets are the root of all evil. The first diet a person embarks on has the potential to ruin their relationship with food and/or their body for the rest of their lives.

2. Emotional eating is bull shit. When I feel an emotion and I want to eat, it's because I've trained my brain that when I am stressed, bored, etc., it's time to eat. I've created a bad habit. It's breakable just like any other bad habit.

3. When I have an urge to eat and I'm not actually hungry, that impulse is not coming from the true Me. When I listen to my true self, I find it's easier than it's ever been to put food out of my mind.

The advice in this book seems over-simplistic. Want to stop over-eating? Then stop doing it. That's what it all comes down to. The book tells you how. I don't want to reveal the author's whole methodology, which is why I was a little cryptic above.

While reading "Brain Over Binge" I decided I was going to try to break some bad habits and start new ones. The general consensus seems to be that it takes about three weeks to start a new, good habit. Who knows how long it takes to break old, bad habits? Doing so involves stopping an activity for long enough that the synapses in that part of the brain weaken until the habit disappears.

The most important bad habit I am breaking is impulsive eating. I get an urge to eat and sometimes I can't even focus until I eat something, regardless of whether I'm hungry or not. That is complete bull shit. That impulse is not coming from Me, and knowing that, I've been able to shut that voice out without much effort. I'm a little surprised, actually, at how easy it's been so far, and a little nervous that it's going to stop working. I'm trying to have faith in the process.

The new good habit I'm starting is eating when I am hungry, and stopping when I am satisfied. A novel idea, right? If I listen to my true self when I'm eating, I can recognize when I have had enough to eat. It's usually when I've slowed down a little, and maybe leaned back or put my fork down. Sometimes it's when I've had a surprisingly small amount of food. Sometimes it's when I've eaten the whole sandwich. Here's a little photo essay of my leftovers from the last two days.

Breakfast. Left: toast with jam. 

Right: granola, berries, yogurt. Normally I would have eaten all of this.

Lunch. Left: bean burrito. Right: Pulled beef sandwich. I notice I feel hungrier at lunch time. I may be waiting too long to eat.

Dinner. Left: pork chop & warm potato salad. Right: Mac & cheese w/ bacon.

Normally I would have managed to polish off my entire dinner, each night. At the very least I would have eaten the potato salad and the bacon because they're my favorite parts of each meal.

You'll notice my meals are not exactly the healthiest meals I could be eating. The idea is to avoid a sense of deprivation, which would feel like a diet, which usually results in a "binge" of sorts; usually at least a few days of eating way too much food. I do enjoy vegetables, I swear. I'll be making more of an effort to incorporate them into my meals.

You may also notice I didn't show you any snacks. Day 1 I didn't eat any snacks, which is VERY unusual for me. Day 2 I had a handful of granola and a few chocolate chips. And then I stopped. Normally I would have eaten ALL of the chocolate chips, but I felt only the smallest desire to do that.

Another thing: I haven't mentioned weight. I decided to stop weighing myself. It was making me feel terrible. So I quit. I might weigh myself in a few weeks, but for now I think it's basically useless. 

I have pretty high hopes for this process, and I've been feeling pretty excited about it, which is more than I can say for just about any diet or cleanse I've ever been on. It's a completely different attitude, actually. I approach diets with a sense of dread, and I've approached this with excitement and hope. That right there might be enough.