Posts by medveditsa

From my experience, when I get bored with food, it means I'm not being creative enough with herbs and spices.  You can eat pretty basic, cheap foods and make them really interesting with seasoning.  

I'm definitely less hungry in the summer.  I also tend to get more exercise, so I need to eat more than I do in the winter.  I make up for it by drinking smoothies with nut butter and soy milk in them.  They don't fill me up, but are a quick way to add 300 calories into my day, even if I'm not hungry.

I live in the pacific northwest, where we get about 8 months a year of rain.  I'm a year-round walker.  I love walking in the rain.  You don't get hot, and there aren't nearly as many people clogging up the paths.  Just embrace it.  Also, on cloudy days, I try to make my food even more colorful than usual.  This time of year, you can get fruits and veggies in every color of the rainbow.  

I've never really had a hard time getting enough fruit.  It's one of my favorite things.  I try to keep the variety up by eating mostly fruit that's in season. I only eat apples in the fall and winter, because that's when they show up at the farmers' market.  This time of year, it's all blueberries, strawberries, cherries and plums for me.  I'm really looking forward to blackberry season.

I'm not vegan, but I cook for a lot of vegans, so I've done a fair bit of product testing.  You may already be aware, but vegan dairy substitutes tend to be just as high in fat as their dairy equivalents, and sometimes contain more fat.  Just a little heads up.  That being said, the best margarine I've found is Earth Balance.  It's fine for toast and stuff like that.  It can also be used with some success in baking, but it's better to start with a vegan recipe than to modify one with butter or margarine.  Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese is pretty good, too.  It's a little thicker than dairy cream cheese, so it spreads more easily if you let it sit out of the fridge for a little while before using it.  When I need vegan yogurt for baking, I use WholeSoy brand.  Soy Delicious ice cream is pretty awesome, and seems to be most popular in my circle of friends.  Cheese is kind of the tough one.  As said above, the vegan parmesan is pretty good.  A lot of the other dairy-free cheeses aren't totally vegan, though.  I've never really found a good one.  When I want something to be cheesy, I usually make nutritional yeast cheese, which is kind of like a cheese sauce.  It's good on pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches and macaroni.  There are tons of recipes online for it.   

A lot of people have recommended walks, but I just wanted to add that, for me, walking up and back down a steep hill does the trick.  It stretches out the muscles in my abdomen and my lower back, both of which tend to be really tight when I have cramps.

Congratulations!  I went for years with an ID that said 230, even though I was in the upper 200s.  I was super excited when I hit 230 last year.  Then I had to get a new ID, and I intentionally put a weight that was about 10 pounds lower than my current weight.  I had missed the motivation.  I just got down under that weight (190), so now I'm back under my ID weight.  

Jealous!  It sounds like you have an amazing summer in store.  In terms of calories, I'd probably just use the very active setting for your activity level.  It's meant for people who work in construction and other very physical jobs.  You can always keep an eye on how your body responds and tweak your calories as you go.  Enjoy!

You're not alone.  This might help:

http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/

I live by myself, and spend about $70 total on food each week.  About $30 of that goes to the farmer's market, and the rest goes to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.  In the summer, those numbers get switched.  I pretty much don't go out to eat, so, even though I spend more on groceries and produce than most people I know, the total amount I spend on food is less.  

A few years ago, my dog went into kidney failure and lost about 25 pounds (and she wasn't a huge dog, so it was pretty severe weight loss).  I had to choose between a whole bunch of medical intervention that she wouldn't have understood and just letting her live out her final months in peace.  I just let her eat whatever she wanted, adding as many calories as I could to her food, and making sure she was as happy as she could be.  She actually regained about 10 or 15 pounds, which made her a lot more comfortable.  A few months went by and she had a series of strokes, and I had to have a vet come to the house and put her to sleep (she couldn't walk).  I've never regretted my decision to let her life end as peacefully as it could.  Animals don't understand medicine and medical intervention, and I think it's often best to just let them take a more natural path at the ends of their lives.  

My tj's just started carrying these little meatless cutlets (kind of chickeny) that are stuffed with corn and black beans.  160 calories, 19 grams of protein, 100% awesome.

Eggs or egg whites, beans, tofu, and dairy are all good sources of protein, and can be found pretty cheap.  

A few years ago I discovered the awesomeness of hummus made from sprouted chickpeas.  It's one of my favorite foods.  I usually just count the calories as regular hummus.  Highly recommended.  

Someday, I will have a pug, and her name will be Whoopsie.  My niece used to have a hamster named Cha Cha Cha, and that was a favorite of mine, too.