Stepping out from the Comfort Zone

Happy Friday everyone! I’m so glad weekend is finally here. As I’m typing this post, it’s raining hard right now! The weather channel mentioned that it’ll be raining throughout weekend.

Anyway, I realized lately I haven’t been posting any recipes etc, although I’ve been cooking as usual – sorry about that. Lately, I am just not as inspired to make new dishes so I haven’t really made anything that’s worthy to share on the blog. Being primal/paleo does take some meal planning in advance, especially now that I don’t rely to those quick fix breakfast/snacks (cookies, crackers, oatmeal, cereal, bread, etc) anymore.

In the beginning it was quite hassle to step out from my comfort zone and being more creative in my dishes. Substituting soy sauce with coconut aminos, fruits as sweetener instead of sugar, using coconut oil or avocado oil as opposed to any vegetable oil.
After a while, I started to get a hang on it and all sudden, I don’t even have to think too hard on how to prepare the food anymore. Additionally, I also don’t get that hunger crash as I used to have.

Of course there were hit and miss in my dish creation, which didn’t quite make it to the blog.
Last weekend I bought some fishes that I didn’t use to buy. I used to buy tilapia and striped bass because I know they taste good, but the downside is they are farm raised, which are not quite good nutritionally as wild fishes. So I selected two type of wild fishes: yellow croaks and mullet fish.

Both failed.

Baked mullet fish in coconut milk and curry powder. Looks good but the fishes weren’t that fresh so tasted kinda bland. Yellow croak fishes didn’t turn out good either. I baked them after seasoned with salt pepper and some butter pats and lemon. They taste bland as well, probably because they weren’t fresh either. I spare you from the pictures.

Stepping out from the comfort zone does have a risk. After the incident of the fish, now I am concerned of getting some other fishes to experiment, especially fishes are not cheap! Same deal with buying organic produce and meat. Just by looking at the price tag enough to bust my monthly grocery budget limit. I’m comfortable buying conventional produce and meat and not looking to change that as yet.

In addition to prior, my current life is actually my comfort zone as well. Or I should say my job. Today we were having an office potluck for one of my colleague. She found a new job at another place and today was her last day.

el pollo loco chicken and veggies - the only primal food that I could have from the potluck

Her resignation got me thinking. Do I have the courage to venture to another place? But why would I do that? Currently, I enjoy the place, the work, the drive etc. At least I know I won’t fail to their standard. But does it do any good to my career growth? If I change place, I’ll have to start over again and there’ll be a chance that if I fail, then I’ll lose the job, and then what? Why change when nothing’s broken, right? I know it’s bad, but this is another comfort zone that I don’t want to give up as yet.

Sorry if this post sounds lame, but once a while it’s a nice change to have a post that’s not too food/diet centric, right?

Are you a risk taker? Do you like your current comfort zone? I’d love to hear what you think!

Have a good weekend!

I’ll try to post something yummy next time

 

The L Word

It’s the L word today.

Pretty much I ate same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner LOL

Breakfast – left over veggies from dinner. (no pic)

Lunch
Salmon in Mushroom Sauce

Butter Garlic Shrimp

Dinner
Veggie soup in homemade chicken broth

And bits parts from lunch.

I had two of choco balls that I made last night. Those things were yummy but didn’t make me finish the whole box at once. One bite at one time was enough to satisfy my cravings.

Seriously today I felt super duper lazy. I really didn’t feel like doing anything. Just wanted to sit in front of my computer, surfing around mindlessly. But no matter how lazy I am, there was no excuse to not complete my morning workout.

How did you spend your Saturday today?

FYI the L word of the day is LAZY.

 

Never underestimate your instinct

I just want to do this little quick post about what happened last night.

I hit someone’s car when I was backing up at the office parking lot.

The damage wasn’t too bad, heck in fact my car looks worse than the car that I hit!

SHIT.

Yes they want our parking, but if they are just stuck there blocking our way out, how can they get our parking?

Anyway, this lady was actually waiting for a parking spot and just happened she was at my blind spot. Plus her dark colored car wasn’t helping either. The parking lot wasn’t well lit so the next thing I knew BANG!

I should’ve listened to my instinct for waiting a little later to get out from the office. Lately, our warehouse people been working overtime and since they park their car at the other warehouse, they had to drive their cars back to our facility. But we all get out at the same time. Everytime the office employees try to get out, we got stuck because of the non stop incoming warehouse people.

Now just have to wait for the insurance to take care of everything.

I feel SO STUPID!

Even though the damage wasn’t too bad (scratches on my bumper and the bumper was a bit off now), but this wasn’t my first time.

Almost a year ago when I just moved here, I hit my garage door when I tried to back in AT THE SAME SPOT! That time I didn’t go thru the insurance to fix it, thus I spent about 2k fixing it (the bumper and the tail light).

Why does this have to happen at the SAME SPOT?

Anyway sorry for this little rants. I just need to get something out from my mind. Even my morning exercise couldn’t take this off from my mind.

 

Somebody told me…

The winter is finally here!

one foggy morning - today was actually very sunny but with a very chilly wind!

I need to start shopping at Albertsons.

Company's Thanksgiving gift for employees, $20 gift card at Albertsons and its affiliates (which I've never heard of)

I want to win this Magic Bullet from Katie’s giveaway!

I still have Starbucks $10 gift card given by my manager last year’s Christmas.

I don't drink coffee hence I don't go Starbucks. Eeh..

Today, I realized I didn’t bring my wallet AT ALL until I went to a market to get some groceries per parents request. ARGH!! I took a little detour after got off from work and just to find out I didn’t have it in my bag and I had to drove back home ASAP. Not to mention I saw police stopping someone on the side road. Ugh..!

How could I forget this big fat wallet? Because my bag is too big and has too many stuff in there to notice..haha

I had to lie to my parents said that the market didn’t carry the jicama and pretended to forget to get the pineapples for the juice. LOL…tomorrow I have to go get those for sure.

Questions:
1. How many times have you forgotten to bring your wallet?
For me, a couple of times before. There were times I wasn’t driving, which wasn’t quite a big deal, and there were times that I drove and I was a little nervous about it. And seriously today I felt totally like a dope when I couldn’t find my wallet. Good thing I was still in the parking lot, not in front of the cashier!!

2. What’s your Thanksgiving plan?
I will tag along with hubby to his parents’ house (bringing half of the Asian style turkey (sorry for non meat eaters)) for a dinner, and my parents and bro will go to my aunt’s house for a gathering. Truth to be told, I rather go to the in-laws place..haha…because I don’t have to do dishes or helping out. I have to wash dishes/helping out at my aunt’s place. Ya know, my family side is a very traditional Asian people (women do kitchen stuff, men just sit around in the living room waiting for the food to be ready). Not for me. Besides in traditional Asian thing, the wife supposedly goes with the husband’s family side, right? So I am not wrong either to go to my in-law’s place..haha.

 

What did / do I miss?

I miss my intense workout
Not sure if I mentioned this before but my lower back pain is getting a little better, thanks to daily yoga and stretches. I have to abstain from any intense workout, and that means no running/jogging/weight lifting/burpees/jumping rope etc. My workout activities have been reduced to Yoga and bunch of crunches for the past 2 weeks. Seriously, the idea of not working out just drive me crazy. It’s so weird for me to even say this, especially in the past I wasn’t fitness enthusiast at all.

Now that my back is getting much better, I already tempted to do more intense workout and have to really stop myself not to push it too hard or else I’ll be in more pain. *sigh*

And not to mention my left knee started to bug me since couple days ago. Every time I squat down and get up, it’ll make weird cracking/popping noise. Scaryyyy!!!!! Gosh, am I getting bad karma because my discontent of my bro’s illness??

I missed the biggest full moon of the year
Yesterday was the Mid Autumn Mooncake festival. It was said that last night was the biggest full moon of the year. Anyone caught the big full moon? I missed it!! My hubby went to his parents place for a dinner and came back with this:

When I was little I used to like this mooncake, little I knew what are these made from: lots of sugar and lard! Now that I know what are those made from, I go easy on it. I don’t have sweet tooth to begin with so I know I won’t binge on it. Just a thin slice for a taste is good enough
I heard that they make vegetarian version of this but I haven’t gave them a try. It might still be too sweet to my taste.

I miss my desktop computer
Ever since my parents taking over our computer room, I haven’t been able to go online freely every night. Thus I can’t update my blog as regularly as before nor I can read other’s blogs as often. I do have a laptop but our home wireless connection always drops and have to reboot the router numerous times. Not to mention I don’t have much privacy browsing around my laptop in the dining room. Occasionally, my parents (my dad especially) always glancing looking at my laptop screen to see what I’m doing…that sort of annoying….make me feel like I’m a grade school kid (no offense). I don’t have extra table in my master bedroom and it hurts my lower back even more by sitting on the floor too long. Not to mention I hate using the track pad.

I miss our weekend ritual
When was the last time my hubby and I go for the beach run? It’s been months and I feel like I’ve lost all of my running endurance that I accomplished couple months ago. I’m sure my hubby, K also missed it. I hate running outside our compound. Running in circle is not my favorite. It’s boring, tedious as hell and not to mention have to watch out for the cars. Treadmill is the worst – no offense to the treadmill lovers.

I missed posting the giveaway
Maybe I was secretly wish to reduce my competitors? Anyway go here for PureBar giveaway!

On a little lighter side, I scored this bath robe at CVS Pharmacy!

I don't particularly choose white as my wardrobe because it gets dirty very easily. But they only had pink and lime green which are not my favorite either. No baby blue Oh well, I can live with white.

$9.99 regular price, save $2 with CVS Pharmacy card = $7.99 + tax = $8.77. Not a bad deal! I totally love this deal!

Question of the day: What do / did you miss?

 

Sunday recap and thoughts

It’s Monday evening and finally I had a time to sit down and write my post. As usual Monday is always the hardest day for me to focus at work, but in the end I always finished whatever I had in my hands. Anyway, let’s recap Sunday, shall we?

SUNDAY
So I finally got a chance to test out my Garmin 305 Forerunner Heart Rate Monitor for my beach jog. Apparently, my heart rate was only hovering around 150-160 bpm. My normal pace mainly around 150-155 bpm.

More detailed summary

Hm, I guess my endurance wasn’t as great as I thought to be. That was kind of disappointing, especially after I saw how other people could get their heart rate up to 170-180 bpm.
Speaking of which, next time I have to wear the chest strap over my thin shirt, instead directly on my skin. When I took off the chest strap, I got a red blister across my chest plate! It was hurt!

After the workout, we came home and had some breakfast. I had a little bit of raw almond milk left in the fridge so I used it to make a bowl of oatmeal.

nuked for about 4 minutes and topped with PB. It was super creamy! I should've just nuke the oats instead of cooking it on the stove. Speaking of cooking in a pinch!

Rudi's Organic Bakery Cinnamon Raisin and Honey Sweet Whole Wheat topped with PB

Uh, did I just eat all the calories that I burned this morning?

Ken had these white bread plus 3 more Rudi's Bakery Honey Sweet Whole Wheat Bread and a banana I think.

After breakfast, Ken was asking me whether we should just get the couch and the bar stools that we saw yesterday at Living Spaces and be done with it. I was still a bit hesitant because not sure if we should just get one couch with 3 seats or we should get the love seats as well. Also I was all up for the bar stools but then I want to get them together with dining set so the bar stools and the dining chairs will match. Yeah, I’m such a picky person when it comes to furniture coordination. I don’t like seeing things not match to each other. When we were still living in apartment, I could careless about it since we’d move out eventually.

Lunch was just random stuffs that we put together: boiled spinach, nuked carrots, left over Korean soup from the day before, added more tofus in, and steamed sweet potatoes and yam.

Finally I made steamed eggs! A bit watery prolly cuz I added a bit too much water. Still good though!

nuked carrots

Korean pork bone soup with added tofu

steamed yams and 1 korean vermicelli dumpling

Tomatoes and egg

We didn’t go to Ken’s parents place yesterday so that means we would go today. After finished with our lunch, Ken and I started our weekend chores: House cleaning, laundry etc. This time my brother actually helped, though I had to kind of nudge him as a reminder. Anyway, at least he was willing to help. Cleaning is not my hobby, I could tell you that. But I also dislike to see things get dirty and messy. But I always keep telling myself that the longer I procrastinate, the harder I will have to clean it. So might as well I do it more often and I can just roughly don’t have to work too hard to clean it. Ken just cleaned the vacuum cleaner’s filter (we have the bagless vacuum cleaner), so it was actually quite a workout to push that vacuum cleaner on the carpet. Talking about arm exercise there! Not to mention I have to vacuum the stairs as well! I got a good sweat from these activities so I decided to chill a bit and had some treats!

low fat yogurt with cocoa powder and 3 peanut wafers....YUM!

Mix and scoop- YUm. I was at my last wafer at this point.

fresh fruits: orange and peach - mainly these are the only fruits we have in our pantry. There's one big papaya but I didn't feel like cutting it

Of course I didn’t eat all those fruits to myself. Ken had some bites but had to set it aside for later because we were running late to go to his parents place for dinner. No pics, mainly just the typical Chinese food dishes: veggies stir fry with meat, pork bone soup, bunch other stir fry stuff and bought a peking duck. We also had stir fry noodles. I had some of it. Was good.

TODAY
Back to the usual early morning workout again! I am finally at the last phase of my second round P90X, so I gotta bring it! Did lots of push ups, mainly on my toes and some on my knees. I wore my heart rate monitor just for the fun of it. Total calorie burned was only 150 cal! My average heart rate through the whole thing was only around 110-125 bpm. Ugh…another disappointment.

I was going to have my oatmeal bowl before went to work but I was in a time pinch and just grabbed whatever in the fridge. Amazingly, I still managed to cut orange and peach for my afternoon fruit snacks. None for Ken, cause he had to leave earlier than me. So today I had my breakfast at my desk.

Rudi's Organic Bakery Cinnamon Raisin. Yup I had 3 of these!!! 1 Slice was about 100 cal. Heck I ate more than what I burned this morning!!!

A banana for my late morning snack. Was hungry before my lunch time

Had this for lunch: sweet potatoes, yams, spinach and some steamed eggs

Dinner: Fresh sliced tomatoes, boiled gbeans, toasted ww pita bread topped with moz cheese and some steamed chicken meats

Those chicken meat was unseasoned! I didn’t put any salt, soy sauce, pepper, nothing, zero, nada. I just cut them into pieces and steamed them and ate it just like that. It still tasted good, especially for sandwich or “quick pizza toppings.”

Ok, let’s talk about life a bit.
I noticed after I started writing this blog, my life and food are pretty consistent from time to time. I am not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Of course it’s good that I have this consistent routine going on all the time so it becomes part of my life. To sum it up: get up early, workout, work, come back home, eat, sleep (for weekdays), and get up early, workout, come back home, house chores, go to in-law’s place, come back home, sleep (for weekends), rinse and repeat. When you look at it, it’s pretty much the same thing over and over again, without much change.

Yesterday on our way back from Ken’s parents place, we had a little talk about this in the car. Ken pretty much content with whatever we have right now because we have this consistent pace that we know what we’re getting ourselves into it. And he also added he knew that I don’t quite like it. It’s not that I don’t like it but I am worried if I’ll get tired of this routine then what will I do.

Before I started this P90X routine, our routine was mainly work and come home and sleep. Weekends mostly slept in and house chores, visiting in-laws, and sometimes went out. I used to play online games a lot, just sat in front of my computer, playing the whole weekend. Very unproductive, yes and that’s why I decided to do P90X routine. I know I wasn’t thinking of losing weight or getting rip or anything like that. I just want to move my body more, make me feel that I ACTUALLY do something, not just sit in front of computer all the time, even during weekends!

But after nearly 6 months in P90X routine, I wanted to get better in my performance. Before I had this heart rate monitor, I only based off on how I perform everytime I do the workout. I started the beach run last month and slowly developed my cardiovascular. Heck, I always thought I did running, in fact I only did jogging. After I got the heart rate monitor, I realized my endurance wasn’t as good as I thought. It was a bit disappointing in some ways, especially after all these times I thought I pushed myself hard enough which in fact I wasn’t.

Also, now I know how much calories I burned during my workout, I wonder what’s the point of these if I just eat it all back again? I burned 600 something calorie with 1 hour jogging but then I just ate it back with breakfast and lunch. This morning, I only burned about 150 calories and my breakfast alone already more than that. Calories in should be equal to calories out right if I want to maintain whatever I am now? I wonder if I started to have some kind of ED thought. *shudder* Hope not!

Sorry for my rant. I just want to write down whatever in my mind right now. Sometimes it does make me feel a bit better. Just a bit.

Again, hopefully I can win this $40 gift card giveaway.

 

Workaholic Wannabe

I finished my workout on time this morning, though I was stuck washing dirty dishes that been sitting in the sink overnight and putting away clean dishes back to the cabinet. I hate leaving dirty dishes in the sink overnight but last night the drying dish rack was full and the dishes weren’t dry enough to be put away. Anyway still had time to wash, cut and peel fruits for my usual afternoon snacks. I even managed to pack some for my hubby too. Most of the time I didn’t do it but he’s cool with that. He usually just bring oranges, which we have plenty in the fridge!

his and hers. they're exactly the same so I just took one pic..haha

hers only..yeah I'm greedy when it comes to fruits!

And finally I ordered a heart rate monitor from Amazon!

Source: Amazon

Along some other stuffs:

Source: Amazon

Source: Amazon

Despite those hectic things I had to finish, I still managed to get to work at 8 am sharp. The thing is work time is from 8:30 am- 5:30pm. Why so early? Because I am a workaholic rather have a relaxing commute than have to deal with traffic and bad drivers.

Or got stuck because of the train like this:

Today was a bit busier than yesterday, given my other 2 colleagues were not in. But that didn’t stop me having my whole wheat toast with PB for my breakfast:

And my late morning snack

non fat plain yogurt with Kashi cereal. Trust me, I added more after ate some of the yogurt. Love Kashi cereal!

Lunch as usual at around 1pm, whatever left over from last night dinner, with cherries as my dessert.

Back to work an hour later, had to rush some stuff out because it was supposed to be done today. The project requester was freaking out when she found out my colleague, who was handling it wasn’t in today. So I had to finish it up in a jiff. I made it in time and she was happy. In some ways today’s work pace wasn’t that bad. Even though it was busy, it wasn’t that crazy busy that I had to pull my hair out or stayed late. It was very rare that I had to stay later than the usual work time. Once in a while it can get pretty hectic, but once in a while it can get really dead. Talking about balance, eh?

DINNER
Fish fillet in Curry Sauce

nothing beats fresh cucumbers and hummus dipping!

Sorry gotta cut it short. It’s getting late and I’m going to bed.