This is your body on poor coping mechanisms: day 3

Stress and anxiety do an absolute number on my body. It's not like a little soft shoe routine screwing around... No, it's like a circus full of wild animals and evil clowns. My body hates me right now. I feel so puffy and disgusting.

Let's recap what I did wrong and how I can change it:

1. Grad school stress eating. 9 pages worth of track changes from my advisor and feeling like my choices were something salty and crunchy (bagel chips and a bag of cheese filled pretzels) while I looked them over or curling up into a ball. What I can do better: chew gum and have a glass of something fizzy. It's a less harm way to take care of the oral fixation.

2. Emotional stress. Dating and advanced graduate degrees don't mix. I want ice cream and chocolate. I settled for frozen yogurt at half of the calories of ice cream and definitely snagged a pop tart at my parents' this afternoon.  Better choice: step away from the cell phone. If he isn't paying for this degree or professing some sort of soap worthy goo, it simply isn't worth the time right now.

3. Seeing the puff. These arms didn't look like this 2 months ago. This extra pseudo chin is really not welcome and even the legs feel thicker. Digging my heels into the carbs is like throwing fat a welcome home party. Eff that- little meditation, little yoga, lot of green smoothies to remind myself that this dress, isn't going to wear itself on New Year's Eve.

4. Dinner out with a friend. I wanted the Ruben and sweet potato fries. Would I have been thrilled with greens or with their amazing salad with some chicken and a great Italian dressing plus some blue cheese crumbles? Probably. Better choices... Come on.

August starts tomorrow (well, actually today by the time this posts). Let's see if I have one clean month in me: no dairy (no ice cream and no Greek frozen yogurt), no prepackaged food (no chips, chocolate or pretzels) no booze (except for a glass of wine on tomorrow night's date), and no gluten (date exception holds on this too).

More green smoothies. More fermented. More kitchari. More herbal iced or hot infusions. More active, slow food.

Pickles. Day 2

Stronger day today.

Had some prunes and what remained of the potato chips for lunch- woke late and was too busy for breakfast... I know, chips, seriously- they were a single serving bag and now there is no binge food in the house. Yippee. Plus, 0 binges today. 0.

Dinner was a pizza date with mom. Had a huge tossed salad and two small pieces of sausage with it. Dessert was fruit: a plum and some water melon.

Took an 8.9 mile bike ride this evening. And had some sun flower seeds followed by apple sauce and honey. I'm not craving colder weather, but would absolutely love something pumpkin and creamy with a pinch of cardamom right now.

Tonight I made pickles.

It's a recipe modified from a pickle cookbook. The original name is Patty Spear's Solar Glow Honey Spears. I didn't want onions in my pickles, didn't want to make 5-6 pints and completely forgot that I don't have celery seed on hand, so I did what I always do: I made crap up.

Marty's Marvelous Honey Spears

4-5 large pickling cucumbers

Enough water to cover

2 Tbs salt

1/2 cup water

1 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1 cup honey

1 Tbs mustard seed

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp celery salt

Halve the cucumbers and remove seeds. Cut into spears. Place in a bowl and add enough water to cover. Add salt and agitate to mix. Cover and leave over night.

The next day, drain the cucumbers. Mix the last six ingredients in a large pot and heat over medium high for five minutes. Add the cucumbers and bring to a boil. Place the still warm pickles in jars and finish canning process.

I may have used too much liquid, there was a bunch left over, but it was so delicious. I also didn't do the canning/ sealing jazz. I'm planning on eating these within a week, but will be learning how as soon as these cucumber plants really start taking off.

Definitely making these again.

Water: day 1

Warm water was definitely in order today. Gorgeous day: perfect summer weather- nearly cloudless sky until mid afternoon. Perfect mood weather- cleaned the downstairs of the house. A feat for how I'd let it go since the flood displaced my shoe rack and a bunch of random stuff. Now it feels back in order.

Gardened and took a 7 mi ride before dinner. Necessary and gorgeous.

Didn't eat until dinner time: homemade spring rolls and ate them with dipping sauces. I also did leg 1 of a pickle recipe, made some more kombucha and chopped some Bok Choy to ferment with curry seasoning. Picks tomorrow.

Where the wheels fell off tonight was being hungry for something else and not having that want satisfied. I had opportunities that seemed ill fitting and I had something very particular in mind. I didn't expect to get it, but it was still disappointing. I coped with sea salt caramel gelato, salt and vinegar potato chips and Reese's peanut butter cups. Not a graceful landing, but a gluten free, meatless starting place.

C'est la vie... So much to be grateful for this awesome day.

Cold turkey

I'm starting another detox. This time from technology as well as all of my other triggers and time sucks.

Said goodbye to twitter, Facebook, etc today. Keeping this as a log of progress.

Ditching meat, dairy, booze and gluten with the exception of my one dinner a week with mom. Will also find the menu option that seems least harmful when out on a date. Prepackaged is gone. I have to do something to keep from feeling like crap- fingers crossed this helps.

The struggle

What do steak, strawberry cheesecake ice cream, French fries and cheese filled pretzels have in common?

I ate them all yesterday. Don't ask me where they fit on this detoxing, cleansing and trying to lose 25 more pounds kick. They fit well into the feel like garbage, overly anxious about life in general and need something soothing. Not a proud moment and a huge belly ache today. Scheduled in an hour+ bike ride to combat the icky feeling and puffy chin.

I need to make better choices... I need to unload this stress in a safe and sane and possibly salacious manner.

In other news- here's a quick harvest from Thursday. You can't see all of the cucumbers at the bottom of the pile.

Ayurveda

I've been sucking at follow through this summer. A series of unfortunate events and my reaction to them have left me completely off kilter.

I'm eating some gluten and some dairy, but doing pretty well with the rest. I've gotten several books out on Ayurveda and it seems as though I have a Kapha unbalance. I'm slow to rise, slow to lose weight and oily in general. Advice for me has been to lay off of nuts, cow dairy and wheat and I've been pretty ok at it.

Mom and I are doing a pizza night each week- it's something we instituted years ago and a really nice way for us to connect and dine together without getting into trouble with random food.

Here's some of what I've been eating:

Sprouts for kitchari

Braised Brussels sprouts with nectarines

Leek and beet soup-before I puréed it.

Snow pea, onion and garden green omelette. I killed the one piece flip- woot!

Barley

Apple, pear and rhubarb compote... Sooo good.