Perfect Sunday because… and Winners!

Sunday was perfect not just because

• I had a great breakfast
• I worked until 2PM and finish week 1′s work plan!
• Had an amazing Hot Vinsaya Class at DownDogYoga
• Finally found a ripped kabocha!

but more importantly because

• I’ve been spending <5 min to prepare breakfast lately
• I worked hard all this week (8-9 hrs a day)
• I put all I got in this challenging Intermediate Class and formed a pool of sweat in my mat
• I kept searching for a better kabocha!

My point is Sunday (technically afternoon) was amazing not just because what I’ve done in the afternoon, but what I’ve done all this week! If I haven’t worked hard enough, I wouldn’t enjoy so much this half day off. If I hadn’t challenged my body to its edge, I wouldn’t enjoy so much the last 5 min of shavasana. Everything we do has an aim. Sometimes we don’t like it or even struggle with it and it refuses to reveal its purpose until the very end.  But don’t give up!  Keep trying, be persistent and one day all makes sense!

Now, do it yourself! Construct a sentence with: If I haven’t ….., I wouldn’t…..

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Breakfast: kabocha spiced waffle topped with this Peanut Butter sauce and preserve (need to finish the jar soon)

Okay. I have to make justice for FitNutz. The last time I tried it in my oats and didn’t taste a thing and thought it was bland. My fault! It’s not supposed to eat that way. Yesterday I prepared properly as it’s indicated, adding 2-3 tbsp water to dissolve it and used it as sauce for my pancake. It tastes MUCH better this way!!!

wanna recipe? here it comes

Kabocha spiced waffle

Ingredients (for 2 serv)

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup roasted kabocha
• 4 egg whites
• 1/4 cup flax meal
• vanilla/ginger powder/cinnamon/nugmet
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt

Method: super easy! Ground everything in the food processor and make the waffle!

Lunch (2.30PM) I’d grab my arm first if I didn’t have leftovers.

Dessert: a little indulgence

no! the chocolate is not the indulgence part, but the coffee because I already had a big mug in the morning. So second cup is indulgence!

Dinner: sauteed cauliflower, cabbage, black fungus and dry shrimp.

chinese vegetarian chicken with black fungus and shitake mushrooms

served with a nutritious porridge (black rice, chinese dates, seaweed, white fungus and dry longan)

I keep my food rainbow!

and finally a RIPPED KABOCHA!!!

it’s so hard to find a ripped one nowadays! But I kept trying and I finally found one. Persisted and succeeded!

Now, time to announce winners!

Winner to POM recipe contest: Tou Tou’s POM glazed Salmon with Creamy Tofu Sauce

Winner to popchips giveaway: Heather @ Health, Happiness, and Hope

True Random Number Generator

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Emotions & Food

Thanks for your concern and good wishes about the car accident. I’m okay. I spent another day dealing with insurance.:( Got my rental car (out of pocket for now), got doctor checked my back and neck. I’m fine, just need rest and ice.

Today I want to talk about the relationship between emotions and food.

Q1: How do you related your emotions to food? That’s a often talked topic and most people would conclude that we have a bad relationship.

Q2: How many emotions do we have? Big categories: positive & negative. (list below)

Q3: Is your relationship between emotion and food the same with these two types of emotions?

Michelle and I was talking about my late lost of appetite and she pointed out something that I haven’t thought about before. Maybe it’s because my family is here, I am happy and enjoy more time with them so my focus of attention is not into food. She had the same experience. Usually when we’re alone, we feel deprived from love, care and chatter, so we turn into food. This is consistent with Q1.

Positive emotions (just to mention few): comfort, enthusiasm, hopeful, joyful, relieved, excitement, graceful, peaceful, cheerful, energetic, loved, pleasant, relaxed, etc.

Negative emotions: annoyed, anger, confused, disgusted, frustrated, ignored, isolated, lonely, remorse, scared, anxious, exhausted, fear, impatient, irritated, mad, depressed, guilty, jealous, panic, shame, bored, concerned, envy, pressured, sad, stressed, etc.

We feel each one of them at least once in life, many of them thousands of times. I used to think that I always related negative emotions to food in a bad way, that I turn into food as refuge to hide my true emotion. These last few days, after the accident, I just proved I was wrong. As you can imagine, the stress of dealing with insurance, adjuster, police, get a car, thousands of calls and waiting, made me experience most of the emotions in the negative list. What happened to my appetite and hunger? Shut down! I think it’s because I have my parents to cheer me up, to take care of me. If that’s the case… then the solution to avoid bad emotions to trigger cravings would be to have positive emotions to surpass bad ones. Is it the magic formula? Of course not! Who doesn’t want to feel good? What I am saying here is that positive emotions are very powerful, a little can overcome big negative emotions.

Okay. Mom’s cooking show time!

Wednesday dinner

all with rice

Thursday breakkie

Lunch

black chicken soup with black fungus and lettuce

that’s all for now. Two days wasted It’s time to get some work done, both research and cooking!!!

Mindless eating part II

Glad that you liked my review of Mindless Eating. Some of you got confused by why heavy eaters should eat with others when eating with others tend to make people eat more. So, to clarify, these are two separate statements. In average when we eat with others, we eat more because we spend more time on the table. A separate study shows that if you’re a lighter eater and want to gain weight, eat with others, it will make you to mindlessly eat more. If you’re a heavy eater when you eat alone, then it’s better to eat with others because watching what others eat (less than you) will make you to eat less. Maggie found a related article that talks why eating with skinny persons might make you eat more . check it out!

I finished the book so here’s part II

• Information Illussions: Those eating at Subway ate under the illusion that everything they touched was good for them. Those eating at McDonald’s were more conscious about what they ate. People who eats at “healthy” restaurants or lowfat/lowcal products tend to sub-estimate how much they eat.
• Health halos and nutritional labels: we don’t spend much time reading labels. If we see a healthy claim on the label, we buy it and don’t question much about the claim.
• The power of three. This part of the book the author suggests how to deal with Mindless Eating. Pick three small changes and stick to them for 28 days which is what it takes to break an old habit.
• Q&A . I found two of them quite interesting.

1. Is the solution to Mindless Eating to be more mindful of what and how much we eat? No. The goal is not to watch out calorie 24/7, but to make small changes in our environment so it works with us rather than against us. By changing the size of packages and bowls, we mindlessly eat less. By move food away we mindlessly eat less frequently.
2. The most surprising part of his studies was that people consistently deny that they would be influenced by something as trivial as the location of the plate, the lighting of the environment or the person next to them. We think we’re smart and would not be fooled by those small things…. but we do and do it mindlessly!

I asked yesterday whether you eat your fav food at the beginning or save for last. Well, the world is divided in half on this issue, so were your answers. Those who eat the best first are either grew up as a youngest child or came from large families. Those who save the best for last grew up as an only child or as the oldest. Is it your case? Does it make sense to you? It is for me at least

It was a nice day outside but I preferred working at home. It’s a good sign, right? meaning I love my work (if you’re new to this blog, check out About me to see what I mean by work If you’re not new, check it out too, I just updated the career part AGAIN ) As my parents are having good time in Los Angeles, I don’t have anything better to do, so I’d rather be productive!

After seeing Krista‘s egg “mcmuffin” yesterday, I wanted egg for breakfast!

Scrambled egg with LC, Nature’s Pride 12 Grains with Smart Balance and Chocolate pudding with chia

YUMMY~~~

Worked until 1PM, lunch was ready in 20 min. Sauteed kale, sauteed green beans with soy sauce, sesame oil and sesame seeds.

I wish I could be more creative on making meals these days, but check out my fridge

I spent the afternoon on semi-leisure readings

This one for the semi part

Made a pretty juice

With an empty fridge, I didn’t have many degree of freedom for dinner. So I used backup solution: Mom’s Won Ton. My childhood favorite meal. I used this seaweed soup as base

added extra seaweed, white pepper and sesame oil

Thanks mom to make this for me! I love it!!! :

Q: What’s your backup solution when your fridge is empty?

Don’t forget about BSI, you still have few hours to work on!