I have a new love...

Don't tell Josh, but it's starting to get serious. These cremini (crimini?) mushrooms are downright life changing. I like to say everything that I love is life changing, but these guys are seriously dear to my heart. They are so rich and satisfying. That umami flavor does it for me. And cats too apparently.

I can't tell you when I first tried mushrooms, but I've know about this love for awhile now. I grew up with a mushroom (and egg!) hating mom who I can confirm would never serve mushrooms to me as per my previous post. One day I'm going to get her to love mushrooms. One day mom, just you wait!

If you too love mushrooms then this very quick and easy recipe is for you!

Ingredients: 

brown butter mushrooms: 5 C. chopped cremini mushrooms, 1 t. salt, 2 T butter

creamy noodles: half package of egg noodles (4 C. cooked), 1/4 C. sour cream, 1 T butter, 1/4 t. salt, 1 t garlic powder, 1 T dried parsley (plus more for garnish), 1/2 C. chopped provolone

Directions:

Prepare egg noodles according to the package instructions. Drain and set aside.

Wash and dry mushrooms and set aside. Heat butter in a large skillet until it begins to turn brown or a light amber color. Add mushrooms to the pan, careful not to overcrowd them. Add salt and stir. Cook until tender.

Put noodles back in the pot on medium heat. Add butter, sour cream, salt, garlic powder, and parsley to the noodles. Stir until the butter is melted and the noodles are heated thoroughly.

Place noodles on a large serving platter and top with provolone cheese. Add mushrooms to the top of the noodles and garnish with parsley. Serve with a side salad and enjoy!

I make vegetable kung pao with peanuts at least once a week. Josh loves it, I love it, and it's quick and easy to make. I'm pretty sure I could make it with my eyes closed. I sauté two or three cups of celery and one chopped onion in 1-2 T sesame or olive oil. Cook until tender. I add fresh or powdered garlic, white pepper, a few pepper flakes, and one or two shakes of chinese five spice. Then I add about 2 T soy sauce, 2 T rice vinegar, 2 t sugar or honey, a shake of cornstarch and then 1/2 - 1 C. chicken of vegetable stock. Add more soy sauce or garlic to taste and about a cup of salted peanuts. Top off with chili sauce and serve with basmati rice.

Before dinner I did 40 minutes of Insanity and I swear during the whole thing I had Bob in my head yelling at me to work harder. I think it's because of Gail. And you know what? I worked harder! Thanks Bob (and Gail.)

Today's lunch reminds me of my mom and home.  I used Bobby's Goulash as a base recipe because it's the closest to my mom's goulash.  My version only had one pound of ground beef, I used diced tomatoes and an open jar of spaghetti sauce, I replaced two pounds meat with 3 cups of diced cremini mushrooms, and I used worcestershire sauce instead of soy sauce.  Aside from the mushrooms, which remind her of snails, I think she'd approve!

I ate this meal almost three hours ago and I'm still sufficiently stuffed. It looks like dinner won't be for a few more hours.

Time to get my Insanity on!

This morning's breakfast: whole wheat toast with butter, local eggs (these guys were huge!), and a little fruit salad of cherries and clementines. I'm taking time to eat a filling breakfast in an attempt to eliminate the need for a snack before lunch. If I just eat cereal or something lighter, I'm hungry one or two hours later. Sometimes I'm just not satisfied and I find myself looking for something else to eat regardless of hunger. I'm thinking this will tide me over for at least four hours.

Eating three filling meals a day helps with clearing my mind. I don't have to worry so much about eating when I'm not truly hungry because it's more clear this way. And eating enough to keep me full for hours is so helpful.

I should note that I don't think snacking is a bad thing for most people. In the past, snacking for me, leads to more snacking and eating without hunger. I'm finding that if my meal is filling, I really don't need to eat between them.

Do you eat between meals?

I pulled this graphic from the Blog of Impossible Things (one of my favorites!)

This message resonates with me especially on days when my journey or path isn't clear. I'm finding that my biggest obstacle in life is me, and being too much in my head. I can talk myself out of anything.

I recognize the feeling as discomfort. The same feeling I have when I resist the urge to eat more. It's the same one that tells me not to act, not to participate, and not to make goals and dreams a reality. It can be small from putting off doing the dishes until tomorrow, or not flossing before bed, to not balancing my income and budget. It's the slight twinge that pulls me back.

And so often I  have to stop thinking and just do. Getting out of my head is the best medicine for me. Sometimes I'm so afraid that acting without thought will be the mistake, but inaction is often even worse.

How are you getting out of your head today?

Figuring out what I want is key. Any time that familiar voice tells me "Well you could eat a pint of ice cream. No one would know. You could just start over tomorrow. You deserve it." I have a back up plan, and that plan is my mission. My mission is to do what is good for me, not what I think I deserve momentarily.

Binge eating takes me away from my mission. My mission is to be the best version of myself every day. To be present and engaged, to create, to be good to myself and my husband, to be good to others, to spread and share creativity and hope.

When I eat too much I can't participate. I can't be there for myself or anyone else. I have no energy, no hope, and no will to create or follow through with my mission. Food in excess robs me of time and I'm a firm believer that time is the most precious thing we have. How I spend that time is crucial. Not seeking perfection, but giving myself the best possible chance.

The struggle these past couple of weeks is knowing the difference between binge eating and frequent vs. occasional overeating. And being okay with this part of the journey which has not been completely effortless. But, I trust it eventually will be.

When I'm challenged I do two things. One, I realize that my desire to eat too much is just that, a desire. Acting on that desire means nothing more than getting out of the discomfort of having the urge. I don't force it away, I just sit with it. I also remind myself of my mission and the decision becomes more clear. Binge eating (or even frequent overeating) is not apart of my mission and the bigger picture of what I want for myself.

Do you have a mission?

(I made lemon and raspberry jam pancakes this weekend! Check out my other blog, Beautiful Layers, for the easy recipe.)

This week I'm adding a little more structure to my weight loss efforts. I feel like I'm getting the hang of my new, no-binge eating habits and now I'm ready to add exercise and a weekly weigh-in.

This week my goal is to do four hours of cardio and one hour of strength. On Friday's I will post my exercise tally and on Sunday's I will do a weigh in. I feel good about this.

I also want to start adding outfit posts on a regular basis. I want to do this to push myself to get dressed on busy at home days, and also to track my weight loss through photos.

So there's that! How was your weekend? Things were pretty quiet around here. Lots of cooking and working on projects.

That sounds like the lyrics to a church hymn, but you know what I'm finding out? When I'm listening and engaging my higher self, the world seems brighter and everything is more clear. Food is not fear, it is love and so much more enjoyable when I'm not eating it in excess. I've been cooking and baking up a storm, which is obvious from the looks of my kitchen, and I truly love it more than I ever have. And not only that, but I'm excited about life in a way that I never have been. I drank the kool-aid guys.

When I listen and follow what  I need and want in my life, I wake up clear and excited for the day. It feels like opening the windows on the first day of spring. Is anyone else experiencing this after reading Brain Over Binge? I'd love to hear about it.

Lately, I have the energy to do make things happen. Things that I normally get so overwhelmed with and just put on the back burner. One of my dreams has been to create and maintain a creative living blog, so I've been polishing off my Beautiful Layers blog these past couple of days. It's hard to believe I've had that domain for seven years, and this one for six. What the what?

Other stuff that's happening? I'm seriously thinking about returning to University to finish my degree in fine arts/ graphic design. After watching my bff Jas graduate with honors, I was seriously encouraged and inspired to finish my degree. I feel like I am in a different place now than I was when I first when to college. I also feel like I'm more capable of learning and studying new information without the whole rebellious streak. We'll see.

Today I'm getting back into exercising after taking a week off due to a wonky back, which is now on the mend.

Tomorrow makes one week since I started reading and implementing the tools of Brain Over Binge.  In that week I've come to realize a few things that are helping this process:

1) Not every urge or feeling means something. I used to believe that all of my urges and feelings were me, that by not acting on them I was somehow denying myself and being unauthentic to who I am. And on some small level, I already got this. Denying every feeling is uncomfortable and often the only thing I'm fighting is the feeling or urge in and of itself, not the actual thought or feeling.

Here's an example: Sometimes I over think situations and my relationships with people. Often I find myself truly not understanding the motives of a person and examining them. I mull over every detail  in frustration until I feel nauseous and agitated. This is especially true when I believe their actions are wrong, hurting me or themselves. These thoughts take over my mind and I gave them freedom to take over. I do this so often that is became comfortable and familiar, like a bad habit. Like eating 10 cookies. But now, I'm acknowledging that sometimes I just default and it doesn't mean anything about me or the other person. Not every thing needs attention, examining, or confronting. Sometimes I just need to achnowledge the feeling and move on.

This is the same with the urge to eat more. Those urges are not me, but sometimes it's confusing to know the difference because I've learned to give weight to them in my own, evolved voice that reasons and sides with the urges.

This is what they sound like: You already ate that cookie, you might as well eat all of them and start over tomorrow. Your breakfast wasn't perfect you might as well eat everything you want for the rest of the day. You've been so good these past few days, you can slack off today. You didn't lose any weight today, might as well throw in the towel and get serious tomorrow. 

2) I do not need the scale right now. It's true, eating less usually results in weight loss, but not always and not every single day. Logically I understand this. I know that a few days before my period I hold on to water. I know that exercise makes me hold on to water as well. I know that salty foods make me hold on to water. I don't want to use the scale as an excuse or motivator right now. So today, I'm taking it out of the bathroom.

3) Finding my voice. One of the biggest challenges right now is finding my higher voice and listening to it. My higher voice is logical and doesn't want to binge. It doesn't want to keep eating or make myself sick. It wants me to succeed and move forward and grow. But sometimes it tries to justify and encourage my urges and feelings that aren't me, my animal voice. It's helpful for me to have a clear idea of what I do want on a very basic level so that I can easily access this information. It's also helpful to have it written down and handy. Sometimes I can honestly convince myself that I want to binge, that it's who I am, but I know better.

4) Knowing the difference between overeating (or eating too much) and binge eating. This one is very personal and looks different for everyone. This topic is covered a lot in Brain Over Binge. People who do not have any sort of binge eating disorder, eat too much on occasion. Having a second cookie, another slice of pizza, or seconds is not binge eating. Sometimes I simply eat more than what I need and that's all it is.  To me, at it's heart, binge eating is eating that is in excess. If it interrupts my life or causes me to be unhealthy, it is binge eating. I have never eaten as much in one sitting as the author of Brain Over Binge, but that doesn't mean that my excess or binge eating hasn't caused health issues  like obesity or disrupted my life by over taking my thoughts and actions.

4) Practice makes semi-perfect. Changing my mindset is taking work. It's taking practice and meditation. It's not always a huge struggle because I'm not fighting my urges, I'm just sitting with them, but it's still new to me. I still fear that I can't do this or that I'm fooling myself. I still hear the words of therapy and self-help books ringing in my ears that I need to fix my life or find fulfillment or get over depression or find self-esteem. Everday isn't perfect, and I'm becoming okay with that. I'm just riding it out. It's been helpful to create mantras of self-talk written down and handy. It's also helpful knowing that my urges cannot access my movement and that I always have the choice to binge or not. It's totally up to me. I know that it isn't going to be easy at first, and I'm prepared for ups and downs, but I know it doesn't have the be the biggest struggle in my life.