2014 Food Plans

I love food. I enjoy cooking but most of all I love to eat. For the past 10 years I’ve battled constantly with my weight. For about 2 years I did the Atkins diet and lost 90 pounds. I kept the weight off for two years then after some hard times I ended up gaining about 40 of those lost pounds back. Since 2011 I’ve tried just about every fad diet and every “lifestyle” change out there and I’m over it. This year I’m taking a different approach.

I just finished a five day detox,  this one wasn’t my favorite ( I’ve done 5 in the past 3 years) but  it did remind me how much I love fruit and that Juicing is really great. In all my diet testing, I learned  that bread and sugar make me feel good when I eat them but afterwards my body feels like crap for a couple of days and I don’t have much energy.  I also discovered that I can give up milk but not cheese so I want to incorporate all this factors into what I eat. My approach will be hard to label, its a little bit paleo, a little bit Atkins and a little bit vegan.

Vegan?!! I know it’s random and weird especially since I’m embracing my love for cheese and all things pork! I can’t explain it. But I am intrigued by all the things people can make without our basic baking items, like egg (LOVE THEM TOO!!!) and really putting aside the tofu and the seitan, Vegan food is really pretty.

The other day this lady I follow on Instagram @veganista_q8 posted a picture of a No Bake Triple Berry Cheesecake and it was so beautiful I really want to try it. Accounts like hers and many others on Pinterest and Instagram just have me excited about all the stuff you can do in a non-conventional way. The plus side to this is that most of this recipes are also gluten free which means they use ingredients like Almond or coconut flour and chia seeds!! All stuff that’s really healthy and low carb. I am obviously going to make changes to this recipes to make it more appealing or even easier for me but I really want to try a lot of the Vegan recipes I’ve seen on the web.

2014 is the year of embrace. I embrace, my size 10, my love of butter & cheese, my need for a burger with a bun (every once in a while), my love of pork, my love of happy hour and last but not least my recent obsession with all things Vegan. So this year I’ll try to keep my love of fruits and vegetables alive while I try to bake some low carb bread, try to perfect my pulled pork recipe and make a BBQ sauce that’s awesome but sugar free! My sister wants to start using a sugar alcohol called Xylitol  but I want to make a good recipe without it!

All I want is to try and find a healthy balance between the good for you and the just plain good while trying not to gain any weight before my trip to San Francisco where I’ll eat and drink whatever I want!!!

Day 13: When Life gets in the way

So life happened and I missed two days. The world didn’t end and today I have a desperate urge to write, plus the guilt of not posting two days in a row is eating me up, but the delay was unavoidable.

First I had a wedding to attend. I love weddings especially when I like the people that are getting married. The trouble with weddings for me is that I just hate getting ready to go to one. The part I detest the most is finding the right dress. I hate shopping. I know it’s unnatural for a girl to hate this practice but I do,  what can I say? I was traumatized when I was younger and now I can’t find any pleasure in the task. I can window shop as much as the next girl but trying on clothes makes me break out in hives. I love the process of looking at dresses and checking out the latest trends just so I can mock the ones I don’t like, but every time I try something on the joy disappears dress by dress. In this particular case I was lucky, I found my dress on the third store I visited and then everything else easily fell in to place. I had a great pair of shoes at home and the earrings and bracelet where easy to find.

The wedding was beautiful, the bride and groom radiant but the star of the night was the food. I have never eaten so well at a wedding party. We got there late, so we missed the ceremony but we didn’t miss the canapés. This first round my favorites where the dates stuffed with blue cheese and walnuts wrapped in bacon, the lobster ceviche and the chistorras wrapped in puff pastry. In the second round, the cold table, the   shrimp where so perfectly cooked I couldn’t stop eating them, the lamb & mushroom voulavent was such perfection I could’ve eaten just that all night, and the lobster & corn empanadas where so good I only had the chance to eat one. After that came the hot buffet,  between the Cochinillo and the Red Snapper I don’t know which one was better. The dessert table was so pretty and tasty that I didn’t even have room for the cake. I hear it was good.  For a person that loves to eat as much as I do this night was a great one. I wish everyone has the chance to have a dinner like this, where the food is so amazing you’ll remember it for years to come. I feel sorry for my friends though because even though they looked beautiful and in love in this wedding the food was the most memorable part about it.

The  next day I was ready to get back to writing but I slept in.  I woke up late and had lunch with a friend at her recent obsession. Later I went to her house for some chatting and bonding with friends and their dogs. I of course I’m  not a big dog fan, and that’s why every one of my friends has one and they all feel the need to rub up against my leg or cuddle next to me while I take a nap.

After surviving some Tiki love, I went to dinner at an amazing French restaurant called “ Louis Phillipe” (c/ Casimiro de Moya #50 809.682.95551) with some great friends I hadn’t seen in awhile and laughed and ate and drank to my heart’s content. It was a perfect weekend of good food, lots to drink and great friends, therefore I can’t regret missing these past two days.

I have realized that my project might not be as regular as I hope it could be, because sometimes the rest of the world gets in the way, so I will make some adjustments to the concept and give myself some leeway to make this work. In this country we have about thirteen holidays, so that means I have thirteen times where I can take a break. I guess now I only have eleven times but that’s ok,  I'll try to use them wisely

Word Count: 697

P.S If anyone knows the exact number of off days please let me know