Microwave baking

Yes, that's right, microwave baking.  It may sound like a throw back to 1989, but it's not. 

I had some egg whites in the fridge, from a moment of weakness involving pancakes.  Rather than throwing them out, I thought I would try out a receipe that I saw on a blog.  Microwave Protein Muffins.  I could have sworn the receipe called for protein powder. A side from using up the eggs, I was also looking forward to using up some of my insane protein powder stash.  I found one brand that I LOVE, and have 3 or 4 other brands that I need to try to use up.

I put in all the ingredients, and then thought.... "where the heck's the protein powder go in?"  Yeah, it doesn't, I didn't read it properly.  Oh well, I threw a good scoop in for extra measure (and flavour).  Microwaved on high for about 4 minutes and it was done.  I admit I was a lot worried when I saw it rising up out of the bowl.  I'm a gluten-free girl afterall, and I haven't seen that sort of rising action in about 4 years.   I guess it's normal...?  After letting it cool, I was all ready to give it a taste.  In a word... EGGEY.  I guess this is what a souffle would taste like. Not that I've ever had one.  I didn't care for how eggey it was since I don't really like eggs. I decided to whip up a quick emergency chocolate sauce from hot chocolate powder (left over from camping).  With a good dose of chocolate, it was pretty good!  I can think of other ways to improve this "muffin."  I might try it again, as I still have egg whites left.

If you're curious, the ingredients were: 1/2 cup egg whites, 1/4 cup pumpkin, 1/2 tsp baking powder, a dollop of honey, 2tbs of flour, 1 tbs of protein powder.  You are also supposed to add cocoa powder, but I didn't have any, I substituted for chocolate protein powder.  Mix and microwave until it isn't liquidy, and it seems more solid, and not much steam is billowing out of it while nuking.

Okay, back to vegan, 10% fat and carrots tomorrow.  34 days until vacation!

New keyboard!

So exciting, I've had it for about a week, and I realized that I hadn't blogged at all.  Blogging was the whole reason for buying the keyboard.  So here we are.  I feel like this last week has been rough, I started off the week with a ton of plans, and they all went to shit by the middle of the week.  For some unknown reason my neck has suddenly become a lot worse just when my thereapy was almost finished.  I actually hurt as much as just after the car accident.  Luckily, I have been approved for more therapy, so for the next little bit I'm doing weekly massage therapy and physio.  Hopefully it's going to help.  Finishing my day with tylenol, a drink and a 8:30 bedtime is not a pattern I want to keep for myself.

The original plan for the week was yoga twice a week, and participating in a meetup group.  The week started great, I went to the group for the first time.  Despite beng the youngest person there, I really liked the vibe of the women.  I'm looking forward to going again this week.  Every woman in the group is working towards a goal, and they share what is working for them and what their next steps are.  So the members of the group get support, encouragement and ideas for how to get to the next step- whatever that step is.  Since a good chunk of my goals of late centre around working through my anxiety, the group is just perfect for me.  But my neck was hurting too bad to follow through with the rest of the plan.  Maybe this week.  It's very frustratng that I can't do things because of this neck injury.  However, I have concurred 3 challenges this week, so it wasn't a total bust.   I forced myself to drive at night, I met a large group of total strangers and I took an exit that I was totally afraid of.  Might seem like little things, but for me that's huge.

I got another ergo assessment at work, in hopes that it will also help with the neck pain.  It's too soon to tell, but I'm thinking it should help, since the pain gets worse the further into the workweek.  This weekends goal was to find clearout summer clothes for my upcomming vacation.  I didn't give it too much thought, it's still mid 20's everyday of the week, and it's still shorts weather.  But it is almost October and all the stores have changed their seasons.  I couldn't find anything!  I needed to find something as the 80/10/10 diet shift has made some changes to my tummy and thighs in a rather spectacular way.  This was starting to stress me out, along with the neck pain, I was feeling pretty down. I went off the diet plan a little bit for the weekend, and treated myself at the spa.  I got my nails done, it's been years since I last had nice long nails.  My afternoon at the spa and the extra fatty diet did lift my spirits. I managed to find a few clothes at the thrift store and watched movies while I moved the buttons on my shorts for the second time this summer.  Last year I moved all the buttons out, earlier this summer I moved all the buttons back to where they started, and now they are further in.  I'm not sure I've ever moved buttons in! 

**Dear Blogger, why is there no spell check for this app?  Sorry readers, you'll just have to suffer with my poor spelling abilities.

Getting down to it.

Tickets are booked! In roughly 40 days I'll be on vacation.  About a year ago when I went raw, I thought it would be nice if I could be in shape enough to wear a bikini.  Don't we all think that?  I'm a long way from that being a reality, but it is still the dream.  I've noticed that I've hit a plateau, maybe because I haven't been working out as often.  Or maybe it was the cheezies.  So now it's the big push to the finish line. I had thought about doing a juice feast (not eating, just drinking a ton of fresh juices) but the thought of cleaning my juicer multiple times a day, and peeing 20 times a day just isn't speaking to me.  If I'm not pumped at the start, I won't last long.  So instead I'm going to try a different version of the raw vegan diet, maybe it'll give my body the jolt it needs.

I'm going to try following a fruitarian diet for a while and see how it goes.  The name is deceiving, fruitarians eat fruits, veg, nuts and seeds, just like other raw vegans. It's just the proportions that make the difference.  The goal is to get 80% of calories from carbs (fruit) 10% from protein and 10% from fat.  I have been doing a modified version of this for a while now.  But today I calculated it. I've been doing 60/20/20.  To compare, a standard American diet is 50% carbs, 35% fat and 15 % protein.  It doesn't sound like I'm that far off, and by American standards I eat a low fat diet.  But upping my carbs by 20% and reducing fat and protein by 10% is really hard!  100 calories of nuts is like 1/4 cup, and 100 calories of watermelon is almost 3 cups.  Eat more to lose more?  Let's see. My morning coffee with soy milk, takes up 1/4 of my fat intake for the day.  My coffee!  16 grams of fat a day is the goal. Can I do it? Who knows, I didn't think I could make the switch to vegan, and it turned out to be a breeze.

If you are worried, it's too little fat, don't worry.  My inner thighs will be able to supply my body with enough fat for a long while :-) Plus in 40 days I'll be falling off the bandwagon.

Maybe?

I've always known that I would go back to school eventually. I like learning, and I really like researching.  With labour day a few days away, I can't help but think of my own plans to go back to school.  I don't plan on going back to school until my student loans are paid.  In the meantime, I've been looking at my options.  The government will pay a portion of my tuition if I do a program that would lead to another government job that is in demand.  I've been researching different options for a while.  The leading contenders were social work (either psychiatric or geriatric) or clinical counselling which would put me into corrections.  But I think maybe neither woukd be very fulfuilling in the end.  No one complains like a social worker.  Maybe it's too much pressure, and not enough resources?  I think I lack the grades to make counsellor happen, and I think I lack some key qualities that are needed to make a good counsellor.  Plus I dislike how mentally ill people are treated in general.  Maybe I should stay where I am and learn about someyhing that interests me more.

I'm thinking of learning something completely different.  I have always been drawn to the medical side of things.  There was a time that I wanted to be a paramedic.  However I didn't have my drivers licence, so I went to psychology instead.  Now I think I would find the job too traumatic.  I thought breifly of nursing, but the shift work and the thought of ass wiping quickly made me change my mind.  Plus having worked in pharmacy, I learned how stupid it is to take 90% of of the drugs perscribed, most don't ever heal, they just cover up the symptoms.  People would rather take a pill, than change their lifestyle that caused the problem in the first place.  This frustrated me in the past, so I knew I needed to look in a less traditional medical field.

First this lead me naturopathy, which is a 4 year full time program similar in difficulty to med school.  No thanks, I'm too lazy for that.  Colon hydrotherapy? Too many bums.  Chinese medicine? Same level of difficulty as naturopath.  Accupuncture? Not intereted.  Massage therapy?  Maybe.   Life coach (as suggested by Judy)- I think I'm too young.  Then I thought of homeopathy. The program takes 4 years, but is on the weekends, 11 weeks of the year.  Pretty doable schedule.  The last 2 years are in clinic practicums perscribing herbal, and mineral remedies.  I'm thinking this would be good because I could work as a homeopath part time (while still keeping my other job).  There is the potential to work online through skype doing consultations and or an online store selling the herbal remedies.  Or working in a wellness clinic (there are a few around).  I've been wanting to do a type of work that I could do anywhere in the world.  I think this might fit that bill.  Full time homeopaths make somewhere around $70,000- $80,000 a year, not that I would work full time. 

The drawbacks?  Homeopathy is currently an unregulated practice in Canada, but is moving towards accreditation (it's more mainstream in Europe).  It's not eligible for student loans, and my employer will not help me with this.  The tuition is about $5000 a year.  It's slightly kookie.  Although it's less kookie than animal psychic, or alien transportation specialist. I'm also looking into a few other options, but I'm welcome to suggestions too!

What do you think? Could you see me doing this? 

End of Summer update

It seems like this summer went so quickly! This morning I got up early and headed out to the farmers market. The onky thing on my lisg was organic blueberries.  No luck. For some reason, this weeks market was terrible!  Nothing but carrots and potaoes.  Also there were fewer farmers this week. Those that were, weren't organic.  I decided to drive over to the farm to buy the blueberries direct, but turns out their season is over and they were closed.  But that wasn't going to stop me!  So I drove to the roadside berries stands close to me, but they were also closed.  On my 5th stop I finally found some, not organic, but that this point, I didn't think I could be picky.  Guess it's nothing but potatoes and turnips until spring. Bleh.

This summer was very busy, I got so busy doing things that I totally went off my routine.  I hardly hiked at all.  But now that Sarah is back in Hong Kong, I am back on track. No more hawkin's cheezies.   No more thinking about Me 'n Ed's pizza. (I'm still working on that one.)  Not that it was Sarah's fault, she just got me busy doing other fun things. Almost a year ago I made a goal for myself that is probably impossible.  I wanted to wear a bikini when I go to Hong Kong at the end of Oct.  At this point, I'd have to develop annorexia to make that happen.  Maybe next year.  A couple weeks ago I was 4 pounds from my "realistic" goal.  However that was before a rather indulgant campjng trip that was the caloric undoing of many a Friesen.  So now that I'm zeroing in on the realistic goal, I need to set myself a new numeric goal.  I'm thinking of setting 5 pound goals since weightloss seems to be slowing.  Seems reasonable.

The other day, it dawned on me one major advantage of living and working here.  This will be the first time in 3 years that I won't be commuting in the winter.  For that alone, I have decided to stay put until the spring.   And then who knows? I had briefly thought of moving closer to the centre of town becuase my landlord was pushing me to pay more rent.  I think I have held her off for now.  The cost of moving would have been greater in the long run than just paying more rent. I'm sure at some point she'll broach the subject again.

In other news, I have just purchased a bluetooth keyboard for my tablet that will make it sooooo much easier to type. I love my tablet, and think it was a smart purchase, but the touch screen keyboard is not ideal for blogging.  Everyother word has a typo.  Once the keyboard arrives , I'll do a photo update.  If you are thinking of buying a laptop, let me persuade you to buy a tablet instead.  It's like combining your laptop, with your ebook reader, with your phone (apps and games) with your tv (controls your tv and sends images from the tablet to your tv). I was a firm supporter of laptops, now I would not go back. The only thing I wish it could do is connect my iphone to the tablet and send information between the two of them.