food porn

atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: Guess who’s back…

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Yup! I’m back on the treadmill and doing Zombies Run! I’m not doing any kind of program or anything; just warming up for 5 minutes, a VERY easy jog for 20 minutes, then 5 minutes to cool down. I know weight loss and getting stronger isn’t all about the cardio but; I enjoy running and I’ll work on getting in more weights. I know I need to get my steps up and this is a really easy way to do it.

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Don’t judge my excessive garlic. I like it.

I know my doctor wanted me to take fish oil but I am still trying to eat more fish overall. I baked some salmon and using the seasoning packet from some ramen, I seasoned the fish and the noodles under that fish. I split it between me and the kid so it was less salt and calories overall. I would have had some green veggies with this but my Misfits Market delivery with what veggies I could use never came.

Am I cursed to not get Misfits Market deliveries on days when I’m off work? Because it doesn’t happen often but the two times Misfits Market hasn’t delivered when promised, I’ve been off work…

Anyway, I feel great getting on the treadmill again and enjoying the Zombies Run story. Still trying to figure out how to balance the right amount of cardio and weights around my job and… Everything else. But I’m sure I’ll get there.

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atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: I’m Okay!

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More peddler today but the main star is trying out salmon in the electric lunch box.

The last time I tried putting salmon in this thing, I put the salmon in the fridge to marinate, didn’t remember how long I’d had it in there, figured it’d be fine if I cooked it enough, and ended up spending the next day bent over the toilet heaving my guts out. That was years ago and I still was afraid to see how this was going to turn out. But, luckily this was fine. And it was filling and delicious.

I still think beef and chicken are the best for this type of recipe. Maybe lemon would be better with the fish instead of soy sauce but my all time favorite is sliced or cubed beef with broccoli instead of bok choy. The noodles are fun but not necessary. I used Black Garlic Oil ramen but only half the block and half the seasoning because the soy sauce is already salty; I don’t need the ramen seasoning on top of that.

The next few days I’m gonna be taking it easy and enjoying the parts of the weekend I don’t have to work. I’m still pondering if I want to do NaNoWriMo this year or what I would even write about. All the series I have are short stories except for the First Brood series and I already started book 4. That would be cheating to start a challenge with a few thousand words already written. Maybe I’ll have a lightbulb moment over the next couple weeks.

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atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: Hello carbs!

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I kinda took it easy on the desk peddler today as I could still feel some soreness from last weekend. For lunch I just had the same salad as last night but I had some fun with dinner.

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I noticed the diced tomatoes were building up in the fridge so I cooked some tri color vegetable pasta, chopped up garlic and onion, sauteed them in olive oil and added the tomatoes. Simmer for a bit with some of the pasta water and top with some shredded Parmesan! You may feel like those onions aren’t cooked enough but I like my veggies crunchy. I kinda miss the garlic scrapes from Misfits Market but they haven’t had those in stock again.

It’s been awhile since I made pasta at home and it was super filling. I’m glad I split my old portion into two so I have lunch for tomorrow. It’s my late night so, I have to bring two meals. I plan to experiment a little… Cross your fingers I don’t make myself sick… Again.

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atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: This weekend is gonna be interesting…

I took a walk during my lunch break in normal shoes but I also tested out the shoes I’m going to wear with my cosplay this weekend and they’re as comfortable to walk in as one would expect since they’re heels. I anticipated this and I have foot pads and I plan to bring sneakers to wear for the lions share of the walking. I apparently love torture since I walk from Penn to Javitz.

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Since I didn’t eat much of anything for lunch (I just ate an apple) I went all out for dinner. There’s some plain ramen noodles under those veggies and ground beef. I might have over done it with the chili crisp but I enjoyed eating this and the kid liked it (with enoki mushrooms, go figure). I like the combination of snow peas and bok choy. It’s crunchy goodness!

Tomorrow is NYCC day one. I won’t be thinking about my diet much since all that walking makes me not want to eat much. I just feel tired and have sore feet.

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atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: Fueled by ghosts

I’m enjoying trying out the Dead Sled coffees I have around. This one is cookies and cream and even though I put too much cream in it, I like this one. It’s really satisfying.

Today was just the desk peddler since I had a lot of work to do at work and tonight I’m working on finalizing my new story to release on Friday. I just want to make sure things flow right and I catch as many typos as I can before the book releases.

My MyFitnessPal account is public if you want to friend me on there but as you can see, I have lost 2 more pounds. I’m 206.8 now after creeping back up to 211 when I took on this challenge to fit into the cosplay dress. There’s exactly a week before NYCC and maybe I can drop another 2, fingers crossed. I don’t feel any different; other than accomplished with what I’ve done so far. I’ve lost 25.4 pounds since I started the Saxenda. The real challenge now is to keep up the progress off of that medication. The side effects are NOT something I want to deal with while spending hours walking around in the city or Javitz Center with public bathrooms as my only option AND wearing a costume. Noooooooo thank you!

This is almost the last of the chicken and sweet potato I figure there’s one more meal’s worth out of those leftovers which is perfect because tomorrow I work late and have to bring two meals to eat instead of one. I plan on making my usual meat and bok choy to use in my electric lunch box. Misfits Market has been on point with the bok choy lately. They don’t always have it and I just can’t get broccoli from them anymore.

Now, I’m back to typo hunting…

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atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: Finger Lickn’ Good

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Since I was off today, I was doing chores and didn’t do any cardio. I decided to keep up with the kettlebell workouts to build my muscles and strength. It’s only an 8 pound kettlebell but with all the reps I do, I can feel the pain.

As is my habit, I like to have a major cooking day at the beginning of the week if I have the day off. Today, I baked a whole chicken with sweet potatoes and onions. I brined the chicken overnight in saltwater and lemon pepper with some sage, thyme, and garlic powder. I dried the skin off, seasoned it inside and out with kosher salt and pepper, then put a slab of butter inside the bird while it cooked. I also put butter on the potatoes and everything turned out juicy and delicious. I portioned out some for lunches tomorrow (one for me, one for the kid) and there was still some left after I stripped the meat from the bones.

The temperatures are dropping and this was the perfect comfort dinner. It’s gonna need to cool off more before I have a pot simmering for hours making broth but this was just right. And it has plenty of protein and vitamins I’m lacking from my last blood tests. While this is more work than just nibbling on a gummy vitamin, this tasted much better.

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atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: I made it…

Holy shit, I made it… I worked from last Sunday to this Sunday and I finally get a day off tomorrow. Man, I wish I could sleep all day but, there are chores to be done; including meal prep for the rest of the week.

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Part of my life goals in general is to use up food that’s in the house and I had some sweet Italian sausage but no veggies in the house. I literally Googled the meat and saw whatever the most popular recipes were and bought some green and yellow squash before I went to work. I just sliced up some garlic and onion and this was a good meal! Even the kid liked it (who claims to hate squash) and I have some left over to eat tomorrow.

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I was able to break 4k steps today and I just needed a fucking break from cardio so, it was kettlebell time. Now, the reason why I focused on shoulders and back is since I have been making some progress, I tried on the cosplay dress this morning. I was able to get it on better but not zip it up. I rummaged through my closet and found some shapewear that I bought and never used and when I managed to squeeze my fat ass into it, the zipper went just a bit higher. The problem? *sigh* My boobs. They are just too powerful for the dress…

I kid (mostly) it’s more like my back area just under and around my boobs. But I’ll tell ya, I have a completely different opinion on shapewear now. I decided on a lark to try on a dress that I bought years ago (and it was the same size as two other dresses in the same order but somehow was too small) and not only did I get into it but… I was kinda hot? Like, dangerous levels of confidence here.

This inspired me to work on the back fat and look into some shapewear that will also minimize my chest area to maybe finally get that zipper closed. Eda’s dress is pretty conforming to the body and other than my back, it looks amazing. Even with my big ass.

Before and after pics? Yeah, no thanks. If I fail, I don’t need this immortalized on the internet to taunt me even after my death. I have 10 more days of veggies, protein, and a lot of workouts to see if I can reach my goal. It’s going to be an adventure since I have some extra long days coming up where I won’t be home at my normal time to workout after work… This is why I want to meal prep on my day off so I don’t need to cook for a few days. I’ll probably drift into the house like I’m haunting it and fall into bed rather than cook anything. But we’ll see what I get done tomorrow.

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atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout and More Electric Lunch Box Food

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I felt pretty productive today; finishing off a bunch of books, returning them, clearing away space on my desk, and making sure I have a healthy lunch and prepped what I wanna make for dinner… And I was able to get my heart rate up enough to make me feel like some good calorie burn happened.

Now, I was talking about the electric lunchbox I use at work – where my co-workers get mad it’s not a buffet and don’t bring enough to share – and the steamed meals I make in them.

These are the raw ingredients before I started cooking. Those are small bits of sliced chicken in soy sauce with my usual spices: paprika, cumin and red pepper. I use plain noodles and break the block in half. One pack is over 400 calories, no way I’m eating the whole thing. The greens are bok choy, sliced garlic, white onion, and ginger. I end up having to cook in stages; the chicken first for 15 minutes, add the bok choy in the top section at the 15 minute mark, and the noodles in hot water at the 20 minute mark. At 25 minutes, it’s all done.wp-1663292941402

Sometimes (as in most of the time), I end up over packing the vegetables. I eat what’s cooked and let the rest steam a bit longer. I don’t like my veggies too soggy. I like the crunch. When I do broccoli, I leave the veggies in the entire time since that takes much longer to cook than the bok choy. The water I use to cook the noodles dilutes the soy sauce (I try to use low sodium but that’s not always on sale and I’m a cheap bitch) and the chili crunch is just delicious and fun.

This is a filling dinner that is so satisfying (even though the red pepper makes my nose run, which is gross but worth it). If I get one pack of chicken tenders from Trader Joe’s or Butcher Box, that makes two of these types of meals. I change up the vegetables (I already ranted about my issues with the broccoli from Misfits Market here) and those ramen packs are so cheap when they’re on discount and also last two meals. If I don’t have any noodles, I just add more veggies.

One of these days, I’ll post the version of this I make with lemon chicken and peppers (unless I did that already and fuck it, I’ll do it again) which I have had mixed results adding rice but for that, I just skip the carbs entirely. Rice is hit or miss for me with the electric lunch box. Or at least this kind of electric lunch box because I backed a different one on Kickstarter (yeah, not sponsored or an affiliate for anything I have linked here) that I’ll have to play around with when I get it to see what kinds of meals I can make or if it’s best for just reheating things. Either one would help me out since the microwave can kill food sometimes.

So… I went on a tangent about my food and the geeky products I own. If I put this meal into MyFitnessPal, it’s about 500 calories total; which is good for me since I don’t feel the need to snack at all hours after eating this. If I make this for lunch, I don’t even need dinner. That’s probably the Saxenda as a factor as well but a good workout and getting my steps in burns all this off no problem.

Uhm… I don’t have anything clever to say to end this. I’m tired and going to bed.

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atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workouts: Insert hump day joke here.

Today was a kinda chill day. I got up early to make lunch for the kid (who actually ate it? And actually did the dishes so I had anything to make lunch with? Clearly, an anomaly) and made myself a thermos full of coffee to make it through getting up really early without enough sleep.

I keep waking up in the middle of the night and it’s starting to piss me off…

Anyhooooooo, I learned a valuable lesson food wise not to buy any broccoli from Misfits Market ever again. Either I can’t get the full bunch clean enough to avoid visible bugs (I assume a certain amount of bug eating risk in general but I don’t SEE them normally and I can live in blissful ignorance) or I get the pre-cut florets that have hidden rotten parts in them and they don’t taste right. So, if I get it from them, I either have to make sure to use whatever I buy in one day and see random flies or grubs during my meal or use veggies that taste off even though they are fresh from delivery. Honestly, I’m better off getting broccoli from Trader Joe’s or basically any other place than Misfits. Sorry, Misfits Market, your other stuff is good but not this. I ended up throwing it all out.

On the upside, the other veggies and fruit I’ve bought from Misfits Market have been alright. They are very, VERY fresh and need to be used sooner rather than later. And if you’re wondering why I’m harping on the broccoli, I’ll have to take more pictures of the meals I make at work with the electric lunch box. There’s a method to my madness in usually choosing broccoli as opposed to bok choy; which has a very different result when steamed in the Itaki lunch box. (not sponsored… I WISH I was sponsored!) I guess I should take pictures of how I prep then cook various meals in this thing? Eh, if I remember. I tend to have these types of meals on days where I have time to properly cook and eat them during my hour break, be it lunch on my day shifts or dinner on my night shifts. I have to strategically plan my break to make sure I have an outlet.

If I remember tomorrow, I’ll take photos of my prep before I take the ingredients to work. Also, I have a reputation at work now. Whenever someone smells something delicious at a meal time, someone pokes their head into the break room and says “Oh, it’s her again, not bringing enough for the rest of us.” I’m lucky to have coworkers who aren’t put off by my cooking.

But for now, I’m tired and sore and want to go to sleep.

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atthequillsmercy

Today’s Workout: I got caught…

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If you’re not familiar, if you have chases on in Zombies Run and you don’t make the speed, you don’t die just lose supplies. It was close but, I didn’t go fast enough and I ended up losing some stuff. On Friday, I bet I’ll do better. I wasn’t cramping nearly as much today as on Monday and my posture felt on point.

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Tonight’s dinner was an old classic since I had some snow peas to use up. I cooked the steak first then added the veggies in some soy and hosen sauce. And I love me some chili crisp. I don’t like to think about how much MyFitnessPal rates it as a red food. It’s bloody delicious.

I still need to do my body weight workouts and stretching before I go to sleep but today felt strong. Good way to end out the month.

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