Strawberry-Orange Popsicles

Strawberry-Orange Popsicles
15 medium strawberries, tops cut off and thoroughly washed
1/2 cup orange juice

Put the strawberries and orange juice into a blender. Pulse until thoroughly mixed. Pour into popsicle molds and put in the freezer for 3 hours.

Chemo - Part 10 - Day 9

Well folks, I'm beat. I've been up since 4:24 am Texas time (5:24 in Atlanta). I went to bed after scrambling to hold one of the dogs over the toilet as it threw up, and woke up with carting the same dog to the trash can in my room so that he didn't get sick on the bed. I took the dogs out, finished packing my car, ate scrambled eggs with my parents, and was on the road by 6 am CST. I powered through 1.5 L of water and 4 cans of Diet Coke while I spent over 12 hours today driving back West. (Given that I don't usually consume caffeine, that amount of soda is enough to keep me wide awake for a long drive on endless highways.)

After deciding that there's no way that I'd be able to convince myself to leave my apartment after unpacking my car to go buy food, I stopped in at my local Whole Foods to pick up some pre-cooked meat for dinner. I finally got back to my apartment at 6:20 pm CST, and then managed to completely unload the groceries, cooler, rowing machine (erg), a couple boxes of old books from high school (including all of my high school yearbooks), a box of wine glasses and two pillows my parents gave me for Christmas, a bag of shoes, a potted plant, my suitcase, a duffel bag of shoes, my backpack, a case of Kopparberg cider, and a couple other bags of sundries. All in my apartment by 6:45. Phew. My erg is currently sitting in a corner of my bedroom, and all of my clothes are unpacked and toiletries put away.

Enough about me. Today was apparently a day of sleeping back in Atlanta. I think, overall, the aches and pains are a bit better, though a lingering headache has been today's biggest annoyance. I'm hoping today is a good sign. Sleep is good. It gives your body time to rest and attempt to repair itself. Maybe by resting today, tomorrow will be better. Fingers crossed.

This is another recipe from The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen. This vegetable dish helps with constipation as well as general nutrition. Plus, the ginger can help a bit with nausea. If made according to the instructions, the serving contains 50 calories, 2.5 g of fat (0.4 g saturated fat, 1.7 g mono-unsaturated), 7 g carbohydrates, 1 g protein, 2 g fiber, 195 mg sodium. It can last for 3-5 days in the fridge.

Shredded Carrot and Beet Salad

2 Tbls freshly squeezed orange juice

2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 tsp EVOO

1/2 tsp freshly minced ginger

1/4 tsp sea salt

1 cup carrots, peeled and shredded

1 cup beet, peeled and shredded

2 Tbls mint, chopped (optional)

1. Mix together the orange juice, lemon juice, EVOO, ginger, and sea salt in a bowl.

2. Pour half of the dressing over the carrots and toss to cover evenly. In a separate bowl, do the same thing with the beets.

3. Mix together and serve.

If you're going to store this in the fridge, I'd recommend keeping them in separate containers because the color of the beets may end up overwhelming the carrots. But if you're lazy and don't care if there's color bleeding, just go ahead and put it in the same gallon-sized Ziploc bag.

Zucchini-Carrot Cookies

I call these cookies because they're cookie sized. However, the consistency is a bit more like miniature zucchini bread cakes. When I described them to friends over the weekend, I called them Zucchini-Carrot-Banana-Orange-Coconut Cookies. Doesn't sound terribly appealing ("too many veggies"), but if you like zucchini bread, you'll love these.

Zucchini-Carrot Cookies

1 cup zucchini, shredded

1/2 cup carrot, shredded

1 banana, frozen

2 Tbls orange juice, fresh-squeezed if possible

2 Tbls cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 Tbls honey

1 Tbls maple syrup

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 + 1 Tbls cup almond flour

1/4 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup shredded coconut

Preheat your oven to 325F. Now set out the frozen banana to let it thaw. Use a shredding attachment on your handy-dandy food processor, shred one zucchini. Remove the excess water from the shredded zucchini. Place zucchini on a paper towel and pat with another paper towel. Do the same with the carrot. Place the zucchini, carrot, and banana into a bowl and use a hand-mixer to break down the banana. Beat in the orange juice and eggs, and then mix in all of the remaining ingredients. Using a large spoon, place the batter on a coconut oil-greased baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes.

P90X - Day 3

Day 3 of P90X: Shoulders and Arms

4:45a.m.: Wake up 15 minutes before my alarm and begin internal debate regarding whether I actually want to get up.
5:00a.m.: Alarm goes off. Debate continues.

5:05a.m.: Willpower wins.

5:10a.m.: Start P90X. Let the pain begin.

6:30a.m.: Done!

Yesterday when I got into work, I had to walk down two flights of stairs (for some reason the elevator in the parking deck only goes up to the 5th floor, despite the deck being 8 levels - I work at an engineering company. You'd think that we'd have a better parking deck design, right?). While going down the stairs, I felt like my right quad was going to give out on me. It was shaky and weak, and I was concerned as to whether I could continue . Don't worry, I didn't crumble and fall, but I did walk pretty slowly and held onto the hand-rails with both hands.

Here's what I ate yesterday: 

Breakfast (@7:30a.m.): Rack of lamb with a balsamic glaze, served over mixed greens, and topped with a poached egg. Yeah, I like to eat fancy food, even in the morning.

Snack (@10a.m.): Orange, Dark chocolate with cacao nibs 1/2 serving.

Lunch (@12p.m.): Chicken and steak faijitas with guacamole thanks to a lunch meeting (though I should have just stuck with the food I brought from home - compared to breakfast and dinner, lunch alone had the same number of calories, three times more carbs, the same grams of fat, and 1/3 the protein - eating out is gross sometimes!)

Snack (@4p.m.): Apple

Dinner (@8:30p.m.): Rack of lamb with Brussels sprouts and artichokes

Nutritional data:

		Goal	with Exercise	Actual
Calories	kcal	1,330	1,932	1,625
Carbs	g	183	265	124
Fat	g	44	63	75
Protein	g	50	72	69
Calcium	g	100	100	11
Fiber	g	15	22	18
Cholesterol	mg	-	-	359
Sodium	mg	-	-	1,261
Sugars	g	-	-	39

Sometimes I get cravings. Usually I succumb to them. I'm a firm believer that my body will let me know what it needs. Obviously it does that already: when your body needs water or nutrients, you feel thirsty or hunger, respectively. There was a week of my freshman year at Georgia Tech during which I craved green beans (obviously prior to Paleo). I had green beans at every meal, including breakfasts, from Monday through Friday. My breakfast was half of a can of green beans; lunch was a side of green beans; and dinner was green bean casserole. And the week progressed in much of the same way. For some reason, every meal of my meal plan contained green beans that week.  It was more than just me wanting green beans. But most of the times that I claim I'm "craving" something, it's usually just me wanting to eat something like chocolate or sweets. So here are my levels of "craving," 5 being the level where I feel like my body is craving it, not my mind.

0 - No way

1 - I wouldn't mind it

2 - I'd like it

3 - I want it

4 - I really want it (usually stress-related)

5 - I crave it; I need it; I have hunger pangs for this particular food.

So see below for an explanation of what your body is trying to tell you:

Paleo Popsicles

Last week, project management decided to reward us worker bees with ice cream. We got an email at 8 Wednesday morning saying that there would be an ice cream cart on every floor of our building (as well as our office in St. John's, Newfoundland) starting at 1pm. I tried to resist the temptation, but I ended up eating a strawberry popsicle. It was as healthy as I could get and even had strawberry chunks in it. Unfortunately, it contained sugar, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, beet color, etc. On the bright side, it did remind me of how wonderful and refreshing popsicles can be. And it led me to make my own Paleo Popsicles, which are super easy and tasty:

Orange-Berry Popsicles
1/2 cups 100% orange juice (Simply Orange)
1 cup chopped strawberries
1 cup blueberries

Blend ingredients together and pour into a popsicle mold. I bought a 4-popsicle mold from H-E-B for $1. Place in the freezer for 3-4 hours. When you're ready to eat them, dunk the entire mold into some warm water to loosen the sides so you can get the popsicle out. Voilà! A simple refreshing popsicle for the beach.