I am celebrating several major accomplishments this week. None of which would be possible without you, my amazing readers, and my supportive friends and family. All of you inspire everyday! You are the force that moves me forward and that gives me a reason to blog and create recipes. Thank you!
Drumroll, please :-)
My Garlicky Cheezy Kale salad was featured in the new Vegetarian Times Magazine issue (September 2012) as one of the honorable mentions from their recipe contests. That is my second recipe that was published in the Vegetarian Times Magazine as an honorable mention in their readers contest :-) I could not be happier! They even put my photo in this issue and a link to my blog. Win, win, win!
And my Chocolate Raspberry Tofu Pie recipe was published in the Eating Well Magazine (August 2012 issue) :-) It makes me so happy to have two recipes published in magazines at the same time.
On a different note, my weight loss journey is going very well.
I have lost 15.4 pounds (7 kg) since the end of April. I did not measure myself in April so I cannot track how many inches I lost total, but since I measured myself two month ago, I have managed to shrink about 3 inches around my waist, 2 inches around my hips, 1 inch around my arm and 2 inches around my thigh. I manage to squeeze a good cardio exercise into my busy work schedule 6 times a week. I run, I use stationary bike and elliptical machine, I do aerobics at home and I also do some light weight lifting, push-ups and crunches, etc. When I first started running in April, I could barely run 1 full minute without stopping or having to take a walk break. I have slowly built myself to run 5 minutes without stopping, and nowadays I can run 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) without walk breaks or stopping. I am working on improving my speed now.
The hardest part of this journey is not the exercising, it is the food. I am a foodie, food lover and I used to live to eat. Having to shift my priorities, cooking and eating habits was, and still is, a challenge for me. I am trying to keep my calorie intake around 1200-1300 calories a day, but I still enjoy a chocolate (or hot chocolate, or other treat) everyday. It is not about deprivation for me, but I have to plan carefully every meal and every day ahead of time. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. I have cranky days and happy days, I have days when I want to give up, but then I remind myself of the promise I made in April. And it feels good to fit into jeans that are 3 sizes smaller than my old jeans :-)
Congratulations on your recipes being featured in Vegetarian Times and Eating Well! Pretty exciting news. :) However, I noticed you said you were having issues keeping you calorie count--may I suggest looking not only at what you eat, but why you eat?
ReplyDeleteFor example, a need for comfort and certainty is one of our basic human needs–so if you go home and know you can dissolve whatever issues you had during the day through eating, the need is met. However, we can get caught in an unhealthy cycle where we know what we’re doing isn’t helpful for weight loss, but keep doing it out of want for that comfort. Take a look at this video in my link. It does a great job explaining our different needs and how those sorts of habits develop–and more importantly, how to stop the difference between what we know we should do and what we end up doing.
Thank you! I don't use food to cover my problems and emotional distress. I did have a few episodes in the past few months that I went of an eating binge but then I realized that it was not the way to solve problems. I will check out your video.
DeleteYou are so amazing Elisabeth!! And such lovely photos. :)
ReplyDeleteI saw your recipe in my most recent VegTimes!! Congrats :) And....I saw the Eating Well magazing (not knowing you were in it) and almost bought it, but didn't. Now I'll have to go back and look at it! Very cool.
ReplyDeleteTanya
How exciting! Congrats to you!
ReplyDelete