Beyond Willpower

Well I haven't been around lately, just busy and tired at the same time, that combo makes for far less yoga and blogging. Luckily I'm in such a healthy eating routine that I havne't been knocked from it. Last night I tried a new recipe I found online. It was for black bean burgers:   [Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt] One of the things about black bean burgers is that they are notoriously mushy and they can even fall apart at times. Over at Serious Eats  you can find the recipe and read the article that goes along with it, explaining the trial and error, the fucking SCIENCE that went into creating this amazing 'meaty' textured black bean burger. I highly suggest you make a batch. It's a little more work than usual for such a thing but the reward is totally worth it in the end. Joey loved these burgers so much he said we need to make them when he has friends over on Sunday we are also trying to eat healthier. He even had one for lunch today

Blood work. My cholesterol is high, my triglycerides are ridiculous, my sugar (A1C) is 6.1, all as of last October. I have an appointment for my yearly physical on January 26th. I've been doing all I can to improve these numbers. I'm eating between 7-13 servings of fruits and veggies daily. More on days I'm off and can stay home and munch, and less on days I work. I've decided to start prepacking baggiges of fruits, veggies, and nuts, to snack on while I'm at work so that I can get as many servings in a day as I can. I wasn't going to weigh myself for 3 months, but then realized I need to weigh myself NOW so that if what I'm doing isn't working I can adjust it somehow. I've lost 5 lbs so far on this particular Way Of Eating, and I've lost a total of 25 since my high weight. Woot! Nothin' to sneeze at! I feel like my body is so sick, and I am doing what I can to make it well again. That means eating ALL the fruits and veggies, whole grai

Size acceptance. Dieting. Weight loss...Can they go hand in hand? Today I shared this photo on facebook: Melissa Mccarthy has lost some weight recently, citing that she wants to be a good mom and be around for her kids. So, I guess that could be summed up by saying health reasons. I felt the need when I shared the above pic, to add a comment, about how I believe she's lost weight, and it's hard to walk that line between size acceptance and weight loss. I once suggested my blog to a friend and she said she didn't want to read it because she believed in size acceptance. This was kind of annoying, because so do I. At the same time, I have diabetes, non alcoholic fatty liver disease, high cholesterol, and I'm teetering on the edge of high blood pressure. Basically I'm dying, I get that we're all dying, I'm just dying a little faster than I should be. Given my family history, (dad died at age 48 I believe, didn't even see 50, before he was l

DDP Yoga, "Not your momas yoga" Joey and I were laying in bed the other day talking about exercise and yoga and such. He had suggested I give DDP yoga a try. I was feeling pretty down on myself because of my physical limitations. "My stomach is too big for yoga." I said "When I lose 50 lbs I'll try again" I said. I know that yoga helps my fibromyalgia. I used to do it a lot and I had actually gotten pretty good at it. Now though, I'm way bigger than I was the last time I was trying this stuff and it all just seemed terribly hopeless.  So when Joey was at work the other day, right before he came home, I went out and fired up the DDP Yoga video that we have. If you aren't familiar with DDP , or you need to be inspired, here ya go, you're welcome: Anyhow, I decided to give it a try. There was more 'on the floor' stuff and pretzeley stuff than I could handle.  So it was a little less this: 

We got a new cookbook ! Eat like you give a fuck is right! This book is amazing! We've already tried 4 different recipes and talk about impressed! So far I've made the spiced chickpea wraps, the biscuit and lentil gravy (which is my absolute fave so far!), Joey made the sriracha cauliflower and peanut dipping sauce and today I made minestrone! Pics below! *Clearly there are pics of the food and plenty of them! Prepping: The delicious finished product!   I'm going to be honest here and say this isn't a 30 minutes or less cookbook (nor does it make any claims as such), and it does take a little work, and you do make everything from scratch. Although I would be sorely disappointed if I bought a cookbook and it said "Now take the chipotle mayo out of your fridge and slap it on that sammie."  BUT to be fair I absolutely love cooking, that means I love all the prep and 'extra' (the meat of the meal if you will) work. So, there&#