air_n_darkness (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
air_n_darkness) wrote2008-07-30 11:26 am
air_n_darkness) wrote2008-07-30 11:26 am
Entry tags:
Some ramblings on food and nutrition, with a splash of food porn
First, the food porn!
Last night was our coven's Lughnasadh feast/rite. Since this festival is centered around the harvest, we went with a veggie and grain theme for our feast, centered around a Vegetable Curry. Which meant that I, as the resident Curry Goddess, got to make the main course.
I tried out a new yellow curry recipe, and it was wonderful! Easy to prep, and only about 10-15 minutes of cook time. The heat in the sauce can be very easily controlled, and the sauce is actually very refreshing to the palate. What's more, you can use any vegetables you'd like, really. So, for the interested, I'm linking the recipe.
Thai Yellow Vegetable Curry
I highly, highly suggest that if you want to use eggplant, you don't use American eggplant. Search out Chinese or Japanese eggplants instead. They're denser, crisper, and hold their shape. American eggplant tends to be too watery for these types of dishes. Plus, the Asian variety's skins aren't as bitter or chewy as "regular" eggplant. Also, this is not a thick, cooked down curry sauce like many Indian curries; it is a thinner curry and you will want plenty of rice to soak up the yummy goodness. I personally prefer Thai curries over Indian if going veggie.
I've been getting more and more interested in nutrition and actually thinking about food, what's in it, what it does to and for the body, etc, etc. Part of this is because I really do need to lose some weight. Not due to poor self-image or any of that, but because I am getting older, I am developing some of the same health issues that my mother, my father, and my grandparents went through, and, honestly, I don't want to fall apart before I'm fifty. Also, I have degenerative arthritis, and lessening the strain on my back and knees is very important going forward.
I currently weight roughly 255, though I am told very often that I don't "look it." I have an atypical body shape for an "overweight" female, and I do know how to dress to maximize my assets and minimize my flaws. Also, I have a higher percentage of muscle mass than would be expected, especially in my legs, due to the large amounts of strength training I did in my twenties, and the fact that stairs were a way of life for the majority of my life. Upper body strength is negligible though, and that's my own fault for not balancing out my training better back in the day.
Most people when they hear that weight immediately think, "Oh, you just eat too much, and/or too much junk." Well, I admit, I don't always make the best food choices, but then, neither does most of the population. However, I do not overeat. In fact, I eat a lot less than many of my slimmer friends. I do not "diet" any longer. I "dieted" in various ways from the time I was old enough to know what the word meant up until my mid-twenties. My body has learned to process any major shift in consumption or diet as starvation, and even with exercise (especially with) it packs away fat for emergency. I have literally gained weight on a doctor-managed diet. So I have to make small changes over a period of time.
I do need to increase me physical activity level. I, like so many, live a sedentary lifestyle. I work on my feet, but it is not high impact, and when at home, the most exercise I get is cleaning house and walking up and down the stairs. I don't mind exercise and I really miss my strength training. The problem is time- which is not really a problem but an excuse, I know. I'm looking into yoga right now as a way to ease my body back into movement, and hope to start a regime in teh next few weeks.
So. On to nutrition. I stopped sodas. It hasn't made a change in my weight, but it has made a change in my well-being. I sleep better. I don't feel as...blah, I guess. I'm not craving "something sweet" the way I used to and my salt intake as gone down. I've even started cutting refined sugars out of my cooking; I use honey to sweeten both my hot and iced teas, and keep cutting back on the amount because it is too sweet. I'm tasting other flavors more as well. These are all very good things.
I'm currently reading The New Detox Diet. It has proven to be very interesting. Now, I'm a food snob, and I like my cheese and my meats and my pastas and all that too much to completely give them up. However, I am looking at doing a staggered detox program for a few weeks to clean out my system and so I'm looking for recipes that would be alright for such a program, but still give me the depths of flavor that I prefer in my meals. Which brings me back to the curry dish. That dish fits almost perfectly into a detox meal plan.
My biggest challenge will be, oddly enough, eating enough food. When I'm not at work, I have a bad habit of just...not eating. I'm busy, busy, busy, and I put eating off way longer than I should. Heck, I still have to make an effort to actually eat breakfast on any given day.
I'm not wanting to do the detox for weight loss, though I may lose some weight during it. I want to do it as a cleansing process, sort of an affirmation. I won't be starting it for a few more weeks, because I need to finish doing some research and plan things out.
I'll be keeping track of things here once I start, but I will be locking those entries. There will likely be a lot of TMI in them regarding body change and function. If you're interested in reading about my detox journey, just drop me a comment here and I'll add you to the filter. I'll make any recipe posts public though.
Last night was our coven's Lughnasadh feast/rite. Since this festival is centered around the harvest, we went with a veggie and grain theme for our feast, centered around a Vegetable Curry. Which meant that I, as the resident Curry Goddess, got to make the main course.
I tried out a new yellow curry recipe, and it was wonderful! Easy to prep, and only about 10-15 minutes of cook time. The heat in the sauce can be very easily controlled, and the sauce is actually very refreshing to the palate. What's more, you can use any vegetables you'd like, really. So, for the interested, I'm linking the recipe.
Thai Yellow Vegetable Curry
I highly, highly suggest that if you want to use eggplant, you don't use American eggplant. Search out Chinese or Japanese eggplants instead. They're denser, crisper, and hold their shape. American eggplant tends to be too watery for these types of dishes. Plus, the Asian variety's skins aren't as bitter or chewy as "regular" eggplant. Also, this is not a thick, cooked down curry sauce like many Indian curries; it is a thinner curry and you will want plenty of rice to soak up the yummy goodness. I personally prefer Thai curries over Indian if going veggie.
I've been getting more and more interested in nutrition and actually thinking about food, what's in it, what it does to and for the body, etc, etc. Part of this is because I really do need to lose some weight. Not due to poor self-image or any of that, but because I am getting older, I am developing some of the same health issues that my mother, my father, and my grandparents went through, and, honestly, I don't want to fall apart before I'm fifty. Also, I have degenerative arthritis, and lessening the strain on my back and knees is very important going forward.
I currently weight roughly 255, though I am told very often that I don't "look it." I have an atypical body shape for an "overweight" female, and I do know how to dress to maximize my assets and minimize my flaws. Also, I have a higher percentage of muscle mass than would be expected, especially in my legs, due to the large amounts of strength training I did in my twenties, and the fact that stairs were a way of life for the majority of my life. Upper body strength is negligible though, and that's my own fault for not balancing out my training better back in the day.
Most people when they hear that weight immediately think, "Oh, you just eat too much, and/or too much junk." Well, I admit, I don't always make the best food choices, but then, neither does most of the population. However, I do not overeat. In fact, I eat a lot less than many of my slimmer friends. I do not "diet" any longer. I "dieted" in various ways from the time I was old enough to know what the word meant up until my mid-twenties. My body has learned to process any major shift in consumption or diet as starvation, and even with exercise (especially with) it packs away fat for emergency. I have literally gained weight on a doctor-managed diet. So I have to make small changes over a period of time.
I do need to increase me physical activity level. I, like so many, live a sedentary lifestyle. I work on my feet, but it is not high impact, and when at home, the most exercise I get is cleaning house and walking up and down the stairs. I don't mind exercise and I really miss my strength training. The problem is time- which is not really a problem but an excuse, I know. I'm looking into yoga right now as a way to ease my body back into movement, and hope to start a regime in teh next few weeks.
So. On to nutrition. I stopped sodas. It hasn't made a change in my weight, but it has made a change in my well-being. I sleep better. I don't feel as...blah, I guess. I'm not craving "something sweet" the way I used to and my salt intake as gone down. I've even started cutting refined sugars out of my cooking; I use honey to sweeten both my hot and iced teas, and keep cutting back on the amount because it is too sweet. I'm tasting other flavors more as well. These are all very good things.
I'm currently reading The New Detox Diet. It has proven to be very interesting. Now, I'm a food snob, and I like my cheese and my meats and my pastas and all that too much to completely give them up. However, I am looking at doing a staggered detox program for a few weeks to clean out my system and so I'm looking for recipes that would be alright for such a program, but still give me the depths of flavor that I prefer in my meals. Which brings me back to the curry dish. That dish fits almost perfectly into a detox meal plan.
My biggest challenge will be, oddly enough, eating enough food. When I'm not at work, I have a bad habit of just...not eating. I'm busy, busy, busy, and I put eating off way longer than I should. Heck, I still have to make an effort to actually eat breakfast on any given day.
I'm not wanting to do the detox for weight loss, though I may lose some weight during it. I want to do it as a cleansing process, sort of an affirmation. I won't be starting it for a few more weeks, because I need to finish doing some research and plan things out.
I'll be keeping track of things here once I start, but I will be locking those entries. There will likely be a lot of TMI in them regarding body change and function. If you're interested in reading about my detox journey, just drop me a comment here and I'll add you to the filter. I'll make any recipe posts public though.