Reblogged from Sophieologie:

Reblogged from Memoirs of a Healthy Fat Chick:

First, my latest achievement in one month of clean eating, Turbofire and Shakeology:

I know I disappeared for a while folks, but, life happened last week in the form of a major conference with work so I was ripped away from my desk and working hard for the money.

It was quite a challenge, as the conference required me to be on my feet at all times, with no access to a kitchen to plan my meals, and so dead tired at the end of each day that the thought of me turning on Turbofire made my soul hurt.

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Usually baking and diet/weight loss are kept at opposite sides of the spectrum; because who in their right mind would try to bake while watching what they eat? I would!

I don’t have to sit down and eat a whole tray of cookies just because they’re there. I can make two to satisfy my need for something sweet, wrap up the dough and save it in the fridge for another day!

My most recent recipe attempt was Nosh and Nourishs’ Greek Yogurt Blueberry Banana Bread

Ingredients

1 1⁄2 cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour (or sub 1/2 All Purpose, 1/2 Whole Wheat)

3 tablespoons Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

1 1⁄2 teaspoon Baking Powder

1⁄2 teaspoon kosher salt ((optional))

1⁄4 cup honey (or sub 1/2 cup brown sugar)

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

3 Ripe Bananas (small)

2 Eggs

6 ounces Chobani Vanilla Greek Yogurt (or Blueberry)

1 cup Blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Start by combining flour, baking powder, salt in a large mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, mash bananas with a fork until they are gooey and liquid-like.

Add eggs, vanilla and brown sugar… mix thoroughly.

Add greek yogurt

Whisk until everything is well combined and there are no lumps.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and mix until just combined. At this point, fold in the blueberries.

Pour batter into a greased loaf pan and distribute evenly.

Put into the oven and bake for one hour, or until the top is golden brown or a toothpick comes out clean.

My notes on the recipe: 

In the interest of keeping things as healthy as possible I went with the honey and not the brown sugar.

Whole wheat pastry flour can be found in the dry goods section of Whole Foods, I got mine from the no packaging, by the pound area of the store.

I also went with Faye 0% instead of Vanilla. This really made the bread taste “healthy”.  Looking back, for the calorie difference using the Vanilla yogurt would probably make this bread taste more like a sweet treat than a “healthier” alternative. Although my taste-tester counterpart said he did not have issue with the level of sweetness.

On the blog her images show her bananas as really runny, I left mine more chunky. It is banana bread after all.

I’m going to have to give this one another go. While tasty, it’s just not what i was hoping for.

“I have long believed that it is only right and appropriate that before one sleeps with someone, one should be able—if called upon to do so—to make them a proper omelet in the morning. Surely that kind of civility and selflessness would be both good manners and good for the world. Perhaps omelet skills should be learned at the same time you learn to fuck. Perhaps there should be an unspoken agreement that in the event of loss of virginity, the more experienced of the partners should, afterward, make the other an omelet—passing along the skill at an important and presumably memorable moment.”

I am fairly confident of my abilities in preparing a lover, significant other or even an early bird friend a more than decent breakfast. Despite that, in the year and a half that I’ve been living with Tom we have not been able to get a decent egg out of our kitchen. At least, not until this morning!

One thing changed this morning and it may change the way breakfast is prepared in our home forever! We did not change the eggs we bought, we did not change butter or oil or recipe. What I changed was the pan!

We were reminded this morning that in the kitchen, your tools are just as important as your ingredients. Feast your eyes on our lovely 10-inch Calphalon Contemporary Non-Stick Pan.

Breakfast this morning was the easiest it has ever been. So much so, I’d like to invite six people over and cook them eggs too! I turned on the stove,  cracked a couple of eggs and slid those puppies right off the pan! I think I was there all of five minutes! Seriously, you know it has to be an amazing piece of cookware if I dedicated a couple paragraphs to it.

If you’re into kitchen gadgets and such it is not a pricey buy. I say, if you like eggs and are tired of scraping overcooked breakfast off a pan – GET ONE!

If you’re a member of the Twitterverse than you may have noticed the WLRN Canoe Project going on this week. If not, here’s a break down of what the canoe project is all about. WLRN contributor Terence Cantarella is making his way through Miami via the canals and waterways of the city. You may be asking yourself why someone would take on such a project? He’s  doing it for the sake of the adventure which I think is pretty effin’ cool!

Terence is reminding us to look around and see the adventure that awaits us right in our own back yard. He’s seeing parts of the city most of us only pass over on the highways while we curse the traffic. He’s also reminding us that Twitter really is about having conversations and connecting with people. How do we connect on Twitter? You can go meet Terence as his adventure comes to an end at Scotty’s Landing on Thursday afternoon.

You see, on Twitter there are no privacy settings – you’re tweets are either public or they’re not. The great thing about not having that grey area of “privacy” on Twitter is that it puts you out there for people to approach, most of the time it works out great! You talk to people, you compare views, and you can even make friends in the process.

Terence has awakened a bit more adventure in me and he has solidified the love affair I have with Twitter. The friends I’ve made, the conversations I’ve engaged in and the cool stories like this one have been too good to pass up

An image captured by Terence while canoeing through Miami

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I will keep on taking flack for tweeting to my heart’s content and will find a new adventure of my own. Thanks Terence, you’ve inspired me just a little bit more this morning.

Relationships vary, I think we all know that. Friendships, marriages, acquaintances, we’ve all had one or a few of these growing up. Some relationships though, look like the quote above – I call these, Store Dummy Relationships.

Store Dummies are people in relationships who forget. They forget where they are, who they are, what they want out of life, and mostly they forget how to do what’s best for themselves. They become, for the purposes of this post, store dummies.

Store dummies are walking among us on a daily basis, they are those people in relationships who say one thing but want another, they have total disregard for their well-being, and they do everything in their power to keep their significant other as close to subliminal happiness as possible.

They make me question the definition of love…

Is the definition of love subjective? Relationships are all different in dynamic and look, so is it the same with the word and sentiment behind love? Isn’t love typically two compatible people building a life together where they are free to grow and better themselves whilst still being supportive, committed, and dedicated to their relationship?

That’s what love is to me (the short version, at least)  and it pains me to see so many people in these relationships hurting themselves. I’m talking about the people who turn a blind eye to abuses, physical or emotional, about the people who have completely abandoned their own beliefs, and mostly the people who have zero regard for how they feel and think that making their partner happy is going to some how fulfill them for eternity. Newsflash folks, it doesn’t work that way!

Shame on these people! They tarnish what a good relationship is all about! How can youngsters, lost souls, or hopeless romantics recognize and hold on to the belief of thriving, loving relationships if all these store dummies are walking around doing it wrong?!

I know I technically could sit idly by and wait for the rose colored glasses to lose their effects but it’s not in my nature to idle. I want to grab all of these store dummies and show them their worth, show them that some mistakes are not worth making, mostly I want to show them that when you value yourself a valuable love will come.

No amount of maneuvering can make a relationship between two store dummies work, in the end, they cannot move freely so they cannot find a way to fit together.

They just don't fit...

In case you have not let me bring you up to speed.

What they did 48 hours ago,  and now reversed their decision, was say they were no longer going to allocate funds to Planned Parenthood. They alleged that their policies prevent them from donating to an organization that is under investigation. The general consensus was that they were not going to donate to Planned Parenthood anymore because Komen has close ties to pro-life Republicans — the details of which are neither here nor there in relation to this post.

The hoopla over all of this brought me back to my thoughts on charity and how I decide who to support. I recently noticed that a lot of people my age, our age, give blindly. The obvious example being Komen, whose funds do not go towards research for a cure, they go towards “awareness”. This is why they can color EVERYTHING pink and call it do-gooding.

If this is your donor style, hey, that’s fine by me. I just want more. I don’t want t-shirts, posters, toolkits and races, I want results!

I am not really sure why people feel they should get something back when they make a donation. Why the t-shirt, why the big party? Why divert funds from your chosen charity? Where do you think this money is coming from? Did you ask that your donation go towards a program or administrative costs like payrolls? If you didn’t there’s a chance your donation is doing nothing more than printing flyers.

I am not here to tell you where your charity should go, to each his own, really. I am stating that I have changed the way I donate. I look for organizations who are closer to the cause I want to give to, whose focuses are more narrowed on a specific cause, and I have chosen to specify where my dollars go. In 2012 I hope to help more charities bridge the administrative costs gap that haunts all of them so much.

I am donating with my eyes open, I hope others will open theirs too.

Normally  I wouldn’t write about products but in this case I have to say Toms is worthy of the exception. I broke down one day as I was strolling through my local Nordstrom shoe section and decided I was going to give these puppies a try, moments later I was in love. Did you know Toms has basically taken the most simple equation for shoes and put it on shelves for us at an exceptional price?! Ah-mazing! They combine soft fabrics with the most some insanely comfy soles — not just any kind of comfy, I’m talking about walking through the airport travelling kind of comfy. Once I slipped my foot into this shoe I was hooked.

Once I got my new kicks home I did some research. I really wanted to find out what was behind all of this. Is Toms legit? How do they differ from the other charities I’ve become so skeptical of? It’s quite simple, first they are not a charity per-se. They are a for profit company who essentially turns each customer into a donation except instead of taking my money and throwing a race or party or giving me a t-shirt, Toms is going out and making shoes for children in need — amazing right?!

Why shoes you say? I think a lot of people ask that question because Toms has a whole section of their website dedicated to explaining that. 

If they can do this great stuff and make me a comfy shoe at the same time I am all for it. FYI, they’ve also branched out into eye-wear and are continuing the one for one concept. I say, keep up the good work!

Last year I made two big decisions and on the cusp of the busiest time of the year I got to revisit them. The first of these heavy decisions was the decision to leave Miami, the second was the decision to come back.

I made the decision to come back to Miami a year ago last month after being away for about six months. I went back to the scene of the decision last week and got to see up close what i had left behind. I got to remember how I felt there, what I was missing, and mostly it reminded me to be grateful for what I have now.

Walking around, I miss New Jersey. I miss the lush side of the highway where deer can be seen grazing, I miss having such tightly knit family around and I miss the access to the rest of the country I felt I had while being there. It’s funny to miss a place so much I barely got to live in, but I do and I know that visiting will never be the same.

Watching friends now, and going through some of my own stuff as well got me thinking that I don’t think we as a people reflect enough on these heavy decisions. How many people really take the time to analyze their lives as they are living it? I’m not talking about sitting down and “what if-ing” yourself to death, I’m suggesting a mere glimpse at the path that has gotten you to your current state. Think of it as smelling the roses or something — I mean, aren’t we supposed to learn for our future based on where we’ve been?

I am grateful for the chance to reflect on where the year as taken me, it’s like a mini birthday or milestone right smack in the time of year meant for gratitude and feelings of the like. I mostly like knowing that today I still stand by all of my decisions, they still feel right, and I still have the confidence to know that I really do know what’s best for me. Even faced with life’s current adversities I am excited about ending 2011 and welcoming of the changes, challenges and experiences 2012 will bring.

Be observant people, it is the only way to really become wise.

What I did not know, was that I would fall in love – hard! Sure, I had listened to others gush about it, people would say, “Oh, it’s gorgeous”, or “Picture NY but cleaner” and I would nod and smile at their description. But these people failed to mention that this city is so much more than a metropolitan shadow of the Big Apple! Chicago is not the middle child of the US, it is it’s own personality with its own wonderful and exciting list of attributes to bring to the travel table. So much so, I kind of don’t even know where to start…Who am I kidding, of course I know where to start, we start with the food!

Some cities don’t care much about what they eat, there might be one decent restaurant within a 50 mile radius if you’re lucky – thankfully Chicago is not one of those cities. These people do more than care about what they eat, they live it! Eating is not something that is talked about or planned for it’s just done! From the very start of any given day in Chicago you can prepare to be wowed! I had one of the best cups of coffee of my lifetime in this city, and I am not a Foldger’s kind of girl so that means a lot! That is  how early their passion for the delicious starts in Chicago – your morning cup. It will be delicious, bold if you want it and if you walk into Intelligentsia  your cappuccino will even have foam art! Yea, that’s just how Chicago rolls – they offer up cuisine from all over the world and serve it in restaurants, bars, cafes and on the streets with a huge smile of pride on their faces. I kid you not, I did not get bad service in any establishment the whole time I was there.

I think I may have covered the global menu in food in just a week. From Chinese to an almost Ethiopian encounter (we had to leave and didn’t have time – quite sad) to encased meats the likes no Miamian has ever seen, Spanish tapas, diner food, Indian, you name it, I ate it. Needless to say I came back one bloated Betty, but hey it was all worth it for my readers to taste vicariously through me.

Thankfully, with all the sites to see in Chicago you know working up an appetite was not hard to do. I have noticed that in places where the winters are harsh and the summers are short people really love to be outside, Chicago is no exception. The second the sun beats down a little more and the temperatures head  up into the 60′s and 70′s these folks are hitting the streets and soaking it up. There are parks everywhere, concerts, historical tours, little patches of grass far and wide and so much to do and see! The great part about wanting to do stuff in Chicago is transit. Yes, a touchy subject here in SoFlo (we’re jealous of everyone who has it), the train system in Chicago makes life a gabillion times easier. From Wrigley Field to the airport the Blue Line and Red Line are a transportation fair ride – I thoroughly enjoyed this aspect of the city. I kind of had to, it made it so much easier to appreciate the history, architecture and art the city has to show you.

From the Sears (I will not call it Willis) Tower to the Cloudgate (aka the bean) I pretty much walked around the city with my jaw on the floor. The skyscrapers are beautiful and the stories behind their creators and the history of the city make it even more amazing to learn about. The city has worked hard to keep itself afloat, almost literally actually. But it only made them stronger and more full of pride for their fair town.

I’m in love, there is no doubt, I cannot wait to run back into the arms of this fair city, a city that feels like a town, and continue to get to know it. I want to eat at every fabulous and casual restaurant, I want to stare at every skyscraper and learn the ins and outs of their structure and history, and mostly I want to roam the streets and see where I end up. Chicago you are my love!

Cloud Gate Reflections