My camera has died, which means you’re just going to have to wait till I get back to New York for all the gory foodie details. I must say the evidence is a bit on the embarrassing side. But that’s what vacation is for right? Eating all the stuff that you really can’t justify in real life? Like today for instance, I had a cheeseburger for lunch and dinner. I’ve also had fish tacos twice in my three days here. Hmmm, perhaps I’m a creature of habit.
I refuse to feel guilty about my indulgences, but honestly what I want most at this very moment is a long run and something that contains fiber…preferably a vegetable of some sort. I think that sometimes we need these little overboard moments to remind us about how our bodies work. How they feel crappy when we eat crappy but when we eat well, they actually function better. I’m truly looking forward to fulfilling my July Resolution to go grocery shopping when I get home. All I want right now is to stock up on foods that make me feel all good and functional inside. I like junk food as much as the next person, but I only like it in moderation, too much of a good thing really can be too much, and after a while it no longer feels like an indulgence, but a burden I have to bear.
I will say here that the most exciting part of this trip has been meeting one of YOU! Rene, who I’ve began to feel like I know from all her comments, lives in the area and we made plans to meet for lunch. Well, lunch turned into drinks and drinks turned into dinner and dinner turned into hanging out at the hot tub. All I can say is she and her boyfriend are amazing people, and I feel very lucky to have met them.
I have the best readers!
Tomorrow I’ll be chillin’ on an airplane and by the time I get home I’m pretty sure the last thing I’m going to do is get my blogger on, Friday seems like a reasonable time to fess up to my eating extravaganza!
Tags: Blogging, Cheese burgers, Fish Tacos, Los Angeles, Vacation
I’m in LA! The place that self esteem goes to die!
Okay, that’s not fair, there are people with self esteem living in Los Angeles, I just have very strong memories of being 20 years old living in North Hollywood, never eating, losing tons of weight and people asking me if I was pregnant. Okay, so maybe this is the place where my self esteem goes to die.
So far it’s pretty well intact actually. Of course I’m no longer trying to decide if I could ever live here, make it in the film industry (at least not in the one based in LA), and trying to figure out who the heck I am. It’s amazing what maturity does for ones outlook. Also, so far no one’s passive aggressively made comments about my body…yet. So, yeah, I’m good.
The weather is nice, as it always is in Southern California. It really is unfair that Southern California gets to be so awesometastic all the time. I feel like they should share, it’s the nice thing to do.
LA is also the place where my cell phone goes to spaz out. I tried to take pictures of my lunch yesterday on my phone yesterday, but when I try to email them to myself, they get angry and won’t go. So no pictures for you. Here’s what I do have for you though:
Breakfast Monday @ 4am
Cold Chicken Breast (it was left over from the night before)
On the plane
Coffee
Coke
Lunch
My friend and I stopped at the Cheesecake Facory (did I ever mention I worked at the Cheesecake Factory in both Boston and Los Angeles) and split a plate of Fish Tacos. There was still a third of the plate left over. Those portions are huge! Then we split a piece of banan cream cheesecake. mmmm.
I’ll load the pictures of this meal when I get home.
Dinner
Grilled chicken sandwich with BBQ sauce and Cheddar Cheese and Bacon
Fries (I ate about a 1/3rd of the fries)
I’m just as baffled as I was when I lived here at how people stay so thin and fit here. LA is the fast food capital of the world! There are so many fast food joints around, it’s unbelievable to me!
Tags: Fast Food, Los Angeles, Vacation
Happy Fourth of July!!!!
I hope you’re all doing fabulous things (at least those of you in America). Those of you that aren’t American, well then, Happy Saturday, I also hope you’re doing fabulous things.
Yesterday was my BFFs birthday. We started the evening out with a small BBQ at my place then headed out for a night of what we thought would be karaoke, but ended up being adventures in binge drinking. Koreatown in NYC is known for it’s BYOB Karaoke joints, apparently that’s not a good thing, especially when it comes to the cops. New York has apparently had a crackdown on unlicensed karaoke joints and the place we had reservations for was raided the night before, the owner arrested and the place shut down. Twenty-five people just standing in front of a now defunct karaoke parlor wondering what to do with ourselves. Blackberry’s and iPhone’s went into action calling every BYOB place we knew of, ALL OF THEM WERE CLOSED. So sad. There are other karaoke joints that sell alcohol, but they’re usually more expensive and everyone was standing there on the street bottles in hand, no place would let us in like that!
My friend went into quick recovery mode and hopped in to a local bar and told some story to the bartender about someone getting engaged (it helped that there was much bling on the fingers of many of the ladies at the party, engagement is like chicken pox, it totally catches in small groups of friends), so the bartender offered us all three hours of open bar for $25. It wasn’t karaoke but it was still fun, and I drank way too much, but that’s sort of what happens with an open bar.
After the open bar ended a few of us, (5 out of 25) actually hit up a karaoke joint, so there was a wee bit of singing to be had.
Oh, as for exercise I ran 3 miles and did 15 minutes on the stairclimber.
Here’s the Friday food:
Breakfast
Whole wheat english muffin w/ organic peanut butter
Chocolate milk (1% milk w/organic choc. syrup)
Lunch
Whole wheat pasta w/onions, tomato, shrimp and sundried tomato & basil pasta sauce
Snack
Ben & Jerry’s chocolate fudge brownie low fat frozen yogurt
Dinner
Cheeseburger, hot dog and salad
Half a black and white cookie for dessert
Oh, and then we played with dry ice!!!!
Have a great 4th of July everyone! Next time I post I’ll be posting from Los Angeles. I’m escaping rainy New York for a while to hit up sunny So Cal!
There are days when you can muster through your lethargy and do the right thing. Go to the gym. Feel more energized. Be glad you went. Then there are days you can’t. Today was one of those days. I think it’s our 30th straight day of rain or something crazy like that. I went for a pretty long walk today, pre-torrential down pour, well, actually I got caught in a fair amount of an earlier storm. Right as I was about to slip on my spandex and hit the spin room flash-flood style rain, our second storm of the day, came pouring down. It’s the kind of weather that makes you want to curl up in bed and watch Bridget Jones’ Diary-and well, that’s what I think I shall do tonight.
Laughing is like exercise right?
You can’t win ‘em all, some days the rain wins.
Here’s the food:
Breakfast
Strawberry Buckwheat Muffin
True Low Fat Strawberry Yogurt
Snack
Coffee w/splenda and milk
Coconut Cream Pie Larabar
Lunch
$8 Sushi Lunch Special! Now that’s what I call a recession special!
Miso Soup
Salad w/carrot ginger dressing
California Roll and Salmon Avocado Roll (I asked them to use brown instead of white rice-and they said yes!)
Dinner
Gardenburger w/American Cheese on Whole wheat bun
Cucumber, tomato, goat cheese salad w/balsamic vinegar
I don’t know that I’ve ever mentioned this on my blog, but when I was seven my house burned down. In the fire, we lost everything, our pets, our belongings, all of our family pictures. It’s because of this that nary a photo of me before the age of eight is seen. One of the great perks about spending my Wednesdays helping my aunt move, clean and organize her apartment is that so much of her stuff was my grandmother’s stuff, and so much of my grandmother’s stuff documents my family. I get to rummage through pictures of my mom and aunt when they were children, today my aunt sent me home with my mother’s baby book (she’s a pretty adorable baby, I must say), my grandfather’s high school yearbook from 1939, and my grandparents wedding album. I even got to peak at some baby pictures of myself, although I wasn’t allowed to keep them, apparently she wants them. No, worries, I’m pretty sure I’ll inherit them one day. It’s always so fun for me to look through that stuff, because based the photographs and family mementos I had growing up life started in 1990.
It’s hard to photograph, but the gent in the middle right was my grandfather at 18!
While I was looking at pictures of him in his youth my aunt told me something I’d never known. Apparently, because of my grandfather’s height (he was 6′2″) he was stationed as military police during the second world war and was one of President Eisenhower’s bodyguards at one point. So cool!
That’s my grandmother on her wedding day! I think she sort of looked like Ginnfer Goodwin, but no one else seems to agree with me. Hmm, now I’m imagining my grandmother on the set of Big Love.
Proof that I was at one point younger than seven, and that I’ve always been cold.
As for food today, well, uhh, it’s been better. It started off poorly because I didn’t have any food left in my fridge, except for my left over Chinese food from the night before. I basically felt like I was channelling my college self when I stuck it in the microwave this morning. My aunt made a low fat noodle kugel and salad for lunch, so at least that was healthy, but as soon as my uncle came home from work he dished out some ice cream (how could I say no!), luckily it was low fat ice cream. For dinner we went to this seemingly charming restaurant but the food was sub par. Tomorrow will be a better day. I hate feeling full in such hot weather.
Breakfast
Chicken and broccoli over white rice.
You know you’ve been there before.
Lunch
Low fat noodle kugel
Salad w/miscellaneous dressing
Snack
Low fat chocolate mocha ice cream
Dinner
I just want to make the disclaimer that I did not eat all of this food. Nor did we as a group realize the food would be slightly less than mediocre when we ordered this much. We started with an appetizer of steamed muscles, which also came with bread. Another starter was grilled cornbread. For my entree I had a stuffed chicken bread, stuffed with spinach and artichoke. Unfortunately they didn’t mention on the menu that it was topped with an orange marmalade like glaze. It was just weird. This is definitely not a new favorite.
After dinner we headed to a stage production of Coraline, which I thought was really cute. It was a musical, and the music wasn’t great, but the ensemble was wonderful, and they told the story so well. This was a truly age, race, gender blind production. Men played women, the cast of seven was multi-ethnic, and the woman who played Coraline had to be in her 60s! It was totally world rocking-I love that stuff.
Tags: Coraline, Family, Food, restaurants, theatre
Whoa. It’s July! Time flies, I can’t believe it’s 2009, not to mention July of 2009!
I was looking back at my June Resolutions. Obviously, I was in a bit of a funk. Not feeling so hot about life as a freelancer. It’s true, freelancing is hard. This month I figured out a lot about playing the game, so to speak. Meaning, how to get paid! Let’s just say I’m feeling a lot better about being a freelancer these days.
In regard to my other June Resolutions. I tried Urban Rebounding. I was bummed. I’ve taken it before, but didn’t love this teacher. Supposedly there will be another teacher soon (one I already know I like), so perhaps I’ll give it a shot again later on, but instead of trampoline dramatics, I’ve taken to Body Sculpting classes which I find awesomely ass-kick-o-rific.
I did resolve to suck in as much summer as humanly possible, which seemed like a good goal when I made it, unfortunately we’ve an an unprecedented 28 days of rain this June. Basically, we all hid as much as possible. Perhaps this month will be better.
So what’s in store for July:
- Slow eating challenge. My main resolution this month, which I’ve worked on forever, is my rate of ingestion. I must remember to remind myself that no one is trying to take away my veggie burger and I can slow down a bit and enjoy the experience.
- Yoga. I know I’ve made this challenge to myself before, and I never really do it. This time, I’m going to stay away from the heated room for a couple of months, till the temperature comes down in the real world at least. Instead, I’ll hit up at least one yoga class a week at my gym. I’m so embarrassed by my utter lack of flexibility, it’s time I really do something about it.
- Cut back on TLC. Seriously, I used to never watch TV, now I work from home and my day starts out with a heaping dose of “A Baby Story” and progresses till I’m all in a huff over “Jon & Kate” again. I think I need to put a time limit on the amount of TLC that is allowed in my life. It’s not you TLC, it’s me.
- Computer nap time. I’m instituting a computer bed time. A time when all of my work needs to be done so I can unwind and be a non technologically available person. I think 9pm is a reasonable bedtime for the computer.
- Buy groceries weekly. I thought of this this morning when I ate left over Chinese food for breakfast because the only other thing in my fridge was milk and a jar of mustard. I was reading Lara’s Blog, Thinspired, recently, and in a post she wrote “To eat a healthy diet, one should visit the grocery store regularly.” It’s so true, and it’s something I’m so bad at. My mother used to make fun of me and said I lived every day like it was a Thanksgiving food drive, scrounging around for something, often times canned, to survive off of. I’m a grown up, one that loves food, and even loves grocery shopping, so why do I only go once or twice a month! I’m a spaz. This month I resolve to shop weekly!
Yoga, eating, shopping, putting down my computer. I feel like these are very doable and very much needed resolutions. What are your resolutions for July?
Tags: Eating, Resolutions, Shopping, Work, Yoga
The thing that’s good about summer is that it’s way easier to get up at the a-crack of dawn to exercise, because that crack is significantly hotter and sunnier than in the winter.
So, off I was to a 6am spin class. I love working out in the morning because I spend the rest of the day feeling like I don’t have the pressure to work sitting on my shoulders. I hate working out in the morning because I’M SO HUNGRY the rest of the day. Doesn’t matter what the activity was, but I cannot stop eating for the rest of the day. Perhaps it’s psycho symptomatic, or perhaps my metabolism is just revved up and ready for nourishment. I tend to think it’s the former, but regardless of my acknowledging that it may all be in my head, that doesn’t much help when my tummy is grumbling.
I’m still working on finding my perfect exercise time. Sometimes I split the day up and workout a bit in the morning and then some in the afternoon. Monday night I went running at 9pm but was wired all night. AM workouts make me ravenous, but midday workouts are hard to rally for when you’ve got work to get done. I would say I could just give up all together but, methinks my butt would not like that. When do you work out?
I did not workout this morning. I slept, I slept all morning and all night, falling asleep somewhere around 9pm (hence my forgetting to blog). Today will be a rest day of sorts, I’m spending the day with my aunt helping her clean and organize and then we’re going to go see Coraline the Musical! I loved the movie, I hope I love the play.
All the theatre I’ve been seeing lately makes me really miss working on stage. I’m shooting a film this summer, but there’s something magical about being on stage verses being on camera. Sigh…
Oh, speaking on being on camera. ’Memba a few weeks ago when I ran away to shoot a short film in Boston. The film I did was called Frank’s Stop and was a part of the 48-Film Festival, it even won an award. I missed all the ceremonies, but at least I found it on YouTube so I could share it on my blog:
It’s silly. Now for the food.
Breakfast 6.30.09
3-Egg Whites scrambled w/tomato, and peppers
Whole grain toast
Snack 6.30.09
Strawberry Buckwheat Muffin
Coffee w/Splenda and milk
Lunch 6.30.09
Brown rice w/Lentils
Spiced yogurt (very spiced, I put way too much ceyenne pepper in there!)
Happy Hour 6.30.09
I had a job interview in the financial district. While I was there I ended up meeting up with an old coworker for drinking.
Bud Light.
Dinner 6.30.09
Wonton Soup. It’s my kryptonite.
Chicken and Brocolli over white rice
Seriously, is Chinese takeout not the best thing ever invented? I swear MSG is addictive.
Tags: Acting, chinese food, Exercise, Film
Ever heard of a dessert crawl? No. Probably because I made it up, or at least I think I made it up. Friday I was absentee as far as blogging, mainly because I was busy eating as much dessert as humanly possible. A friend was in town from Chi-town this past weekend, so three of us decided to dedicate an afternoon to producing the most worthwhile sugar coma known to man. We started the dessert crawl at The Doughnut Plant where we split a chocolate doughnut, then we headed to my favorite bakery in New York City, Sugar Sweet Sunshine , to have my most favorite thing in life: Banana Pudding. Generally, I don’t love pudding, but this stuff will change your life. In fact I sort of came up with a very-dirty nickname for it, that I will apparently never live down. I’m not sharing it on the internet. Afterward, we hit up the most amazing place on Earth, Economy Candy, which has every type of candy known to man, even types you though you’d never ever see again. It’s a wonderland.
Here are some pictures:
Chocolate doughnut
Banana Pudding, Piggy Pudding & Chocolate Pudding Mixed together and a Pistachio Cupcake
We didn’t finish. Dessert Crawl Fail.
So yeah, basically I need to double up at the gym to undo the damage that was Friday. Here’s what happened in the world of food today:
Breakfast
Kashi Go Lean w/ 1% Milk
Lunch
I met up with an ex-coworker today for lunch. We hit up Chipotle
Chipotle Vegetarian Burrito Bowl w/ rice, beans, peppers, corn, guacamole and sour cream
Dinner
Salad w/lettuce, tomato, cucumber, green & yellow peppers, tuna
Oil & Vinegar
Thanks to all of you that entered the DVD Giveaway, I hope this will be the first of many. As for numero uno, the winner is Susan!
I assigned all the comments a number and and through them into the Random Number generator, and voila a winner was chosen. Susan, I hope you enjoy the DVD!
I’m posting my food for Thursday a day late. I had a long night, a drunk night, on Thursday and when I got home I wasn’t in the best blogging state. I did however preface my night of beer with a really hard spin class. It’s been a while since I really felt like my ass has been sufficiently kicked, but yesterdays ride was just what the doctor, and my glutes, ordered.
Here’s the food:
Breakfast
Whole wheat english muffin w/organic peanut butter
Coffee w/1% milk and stevia
Lunch
Salad w/lettuce, tomato, cucumber, mandarin oranges, beets, goat cheese and sliced almonds
Balsamic Vinegar and Olive Oil
Chocolate milk
Dinner
Leftover frozen pizza
String beans
Note pictured: three beers. I’ve never been one for moderation.
Have you read the news? Vinegar is like trim spa only more tasty on salads. Some Japanese study has shown that the acetic acid in vinegar does some magical mojo with our DNA and activates genes that fight fat. Who knew?
In other news, I may never be able to raise my arms again. I’ve been experimenting in body sculpting classes as of late. Mainly because I don’t trust myself in the weight room. I mean, I know how to do stuff, I’ve worked with personal trainers before, and deep down inside I know what I should be doing-but I hate it. I love cardio. I could run, jump, spin, elipt, climb stairs till the cows come home, but strength training just bores me. I don’t trust myself to really do my body justice in the weight room so I’ve opted for sculpting based classes. So far (and it’s only been a week), I dig it. It’s hard and way more entertaining than trying to avoid eye contact with the big man in little shorts grunting in the corner.
Tonight, however, I probably went a bit too far. Note: If the instructor says use light or medium weights, but youv’e never taken her class before and she’s only using light weights, do not try to be muscle bound rock star and use medium weights. I would not be surprised if I wake up in the morning and my arms are gone. Left me, for a woman who will not make them stand at attention for a solid half hour, weights in hand.
I’m already sore and it’s only been an hour since class ended. Whoops! You live you learn I guess.
Breakfast
Kashi Go Lean Waffles
Organic Maple Syrup
Strawberries
Lunch
Roast Chicken Breast (w/skin-oh my!)
Brown rice w/peas
Dinner
Udon Noodle Soup w/Bok Choy and Shrimp
I haven’t made this since last summer and I forgot how amazing it is!
Tags: Body Sculpt, Exercise, Strength Training
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