bakingmakingmachine

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My dinner tonight. Yummy!!

The filling: half a block of extra firm tofu drained and crumbled into a bowl, 1 tbsp honey mustard, capers, pepper, salt, dill, sumac, granulated onion powder, garlic powder, sesame seeds, 3 tbsp lemon juice, 4 cups of spinach (boil and then squeeze out the water), sautéed 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup sweet onion, 1 tbsp minced garlic.

Spray pan, preheat oven to 350F.

Put 4 layers of phyllo dough down (you can use oil, cooking spray, or melted butter between the layers). Pour in the mixed filling. 4 more layers of phyllo dough done like prior. Cover and bake 20 minutes. Remove cover and bake 20 more minutes.

It was 569 calories for the whole tray. I think next time I might consider topping with tzatziki and using less tofu and more spinach to help with the calories. ❤️

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I decided to stop weighing myself for a few weeks. I'm doing my best on my calories (some days at maintenance, some under, some over but nothing egregious I think) and I'm consistently sticking to cycling 5 days a week for about an hour with 15 minutes of some calisthenics and kettle bell exercises. I'm going to see how this goes and try to slowly clean up my diet a little bit better now that school has slowed down and it's just busy at work and see what happens.

I hope my weight will trend downwards, but, even if it maintains, I will consider that a success as I try to find a better balance with the current "celebrations" I keep getting invited to (that are higher calories than usual hence the days that go over) now that I'm graduating, my trying to fit exercise in where I can, and my on the go and change up in diet. Trial and error. I'm going to keep doing my best! Hopefully, I'll have something good to report in about two weeks.

In the meantime, I'll still be posting meals I make that I enjoy or want to try again and tweak, exercise successes, mechanical and material testing images, crochet, workshops I do (I have a woodworking bowl making workshop coming up within this month and well as a thai cooking course), etcetera. ✨️

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Quick bear ornament I crocheted for some friends when I found out they were going to be having a new member to the family. It could definitely have been better, but I also made it very quickly.

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Some meals I've made recently:

Proscuitto with cassava flour sea salt chips (grain free) and crumbled goat cheese.

A quick frozen meal [came with 6 but I ate one before the picture] they make chicken and vegetable, pork and vegetable, and also just vegetable Bibigo steamed dumplings. I didn't really like the sauce it came with so I made my own with some: low sodium soy sauce, rice vinegar, gochujang, ginger paste, garlic paste, hoison sauce, honey.

Another meal I had that's fairly simple, white rice with 2 hard boiled eggs seasoned with 2 different blends of spices (one spicy and one sweet)

They're all less than 500 calories and are very filling. These are quick meal options. I usually try to aim for higher protein and more vegetables, but with my busy schedule these are some of the foods I over last few days.

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I tried making something different with the fruit I had on hand.

The top is blended raspberries, sugar free maple syrup, and plant based unsweetened plant based yogurt.

The base is oats blended with honey and some sugar free maple syrup.

I think I could definitely improve this in some more trials with different additions, but was decent enough for today.

Less than 400 calories.

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Cold cucumber soup! This is vegan and dairy-free.

This is delicious. Especially paired with some crackers and cheese.

Based on taste preference, there are ranges for some of the ingredients below:

1 English cucumber, 1 tsp to 1 tbsp lime juice, 1 tsp to 1 tbsp minced garlic, 1/2 cup or less of smashed avocado (I used the pre-measured 1 oz. cup), 1/4 to 3/4 plain unsweetened yogurt (i used the plant based one), 1 tsp to 1 tbsp granulated onion powder, 1/2 tbsp dried cilantro, 1 tsp dried oregano all added to a blender. Season with salt and pepper. Eat cold.

Less than 200 calories and amazingly delicious!

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So I previously mentioned we were going to be taking a cooking class and we did! I definitely recommend trying it to anyone. It involved a lot of pasta making. I'm very familiar with this as my family is Italian so it was definitely fun to do and help out others with. We made egg and ricotta ravioli, spinach long thick egg like noodles with a walnut sage paremesan prosciutto sauce. And then a mixed green salad. I couldn't eat any of it due to dietary restrictions on some stuff that was made, but still tons of fun.

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Updates regarding my diet and exercise,

They haven't been the best for the last three weeks. However, I've been still trying. I've been eating at maintenance or slightly above. I skipped a week of cycling during the heaviest of my work/school dissertation defense.

However, starting today, I'm going to be working towards getting back into a deficit. Yesterday, I was able to start back my cycling with a short cycling session and ate slightly above maintenance. Today, I'm doing my normal cycling session time and the goal is to eat at maintenance. And then tomorrow the goal is to cycle and eat in a slight deficit as well as on friday. And then Saturday I'll eat at maintenance with no cycling. And then Sunday I'll work back to eating at maintenance and cycling for that whole week working to have a slight deficit whenever I can. To work back into that mindset.

So hopefully after next week, eating in a slight deficit and cycling a few days a week will be back to normal for me. I'm looking forward to it! Wish me the best! It's all about the journey. It took a bit to gain it, it'll take a bit to lose it! Thankfully, my weight has only changed about 5 pounds in the last 3 weeks so nothing that can't be fixed aiming back towards consistency!

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So it's been a few days, but wanted to give some big updates regarding school/work.

One, I passed! I'm officially a doctor and I'll be graduating in May and working as a post-doc position at my workplace until July. Which means I can start applying to jobs in May! Wooh! It was very tough. Essentially, I handed out my current printed dissertation to my committee as well as print out with note sections of the slides to each member of the committee. I then presented for almost an hour and then answered questions from the public for about 10-15 minutes. Then they closed it to the public and my committee asked me multitudes of I in-depth questions for an hour and a half. They then had me exit the room where they deliberated for 10 minutes. I then entered back into the room to discover I passed!

There's still plenty of work to do for the next few months in regards to the library submission after some more edits from my committee, more paperwork to get signed and submitted, more experimental and computational work to do to work towards the completion of the current work. The goal is to write a journal article on it and submit it by June. I'm also doing a conference for this work in May where I'll present this work in another state. I also have a second journal article that's currently in the, if I have time, pile. So still plenty to do between now and before I plan to leave in July.

But woohoo!

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So yesterday I didn't do the best calorie wise. I believe I ended up eating CLOSE, but still over maintenance by about 250 calories. So not terrible honestly considering this week is such a huge week for me. Also, I did my hour of cycling yesterday which was great. Also, helped keep me from going even more over maintenance. But also, cycling just feels great!

I'm also thinking today I might as well plan to go over calories. I have a late laaaaate night planned considering the final slides for my defense and my dissertation both have to be completed tonight. That way tomorrow afternoon my committee and I can discuss glaring formatting issues or major edits needed prior to my defense friday. Which will give me all of Thursday for corrections, practicing my defense, printing/binding my dissertation, printing slides, placing an order for coffee and sweets to pick up Friday prior to my defense.

So I got this. But I know I'll be stressed and up extremely late and possibly an all nighter so adding calorie counting to today would just add even more stress. So I'll remember that one bad day this week isn't going to ruin me. I'll still be mindful of what I eat for the rest of the day considering this morning prior to a 2 hour nap (since I pulled an all nighter last night) I ate 3 dark chocolate biscottis and 8 dark chocolate Milano cookies. 😂 so I'm already at 710 for the day. So there's a chance to still end slightly above maintenance if I'm smart about my next two meals.

I'm planning on a raspberry vanilla yogurt oat bowl for one (350ish) and maybe a big tuna salad sandwich (375ish) and a blueberry vanilla yogurt oat bowl to finish my all nighter out (450ish). This should keep me around maintenance but also satisfied.

Wish me luck! When I finish my defense, expect lots of experimental and simulation posts sharing the non-security controlled images. They're very cool to me and I think others will think so too. 😊

Also, side note, when I tell people my simulations run in Fortran people always go WOAH! That's old. Haha.

Here's some pictures of my dinner last night. I highly recommend this. Feel free to change the tuna to chicken if you'd like or a vegan alternative. I love pan-fried and marinated crispy tofu as an alternative.

This meal was (560) and incredibly satisfying. I did more than a serving of the pasta because 56 g made me sad to see so I did 90 g instead.

Here's the pasta I used. I recommend following the cooking time to the full 14 minutes otherwise it does have more of an odd texture, but it's really good. It's pricier, so definitely more of an occasional thing for me.

This is tuna, pasta (pictured above), green olives, capers, kalamata olives, spinach and spring mix, lemon juice, crumbled goat cheese.

Protein: 61g, Fiber: 14

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Another successful calorie and exercise day yesterday! Stayed slightly under maintenance and did my cycling for the day. Slowly getting back on track.

Went and got new meal prep ideas for the next 3 weeks so you'll likely see new meal ideas popping up.

Also, defending in 4 days!!!!!!! Wow. I can't believe it's here already.

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Yesterday was successful in eating at maintenance, so I hope to do the same again today.

My hair appt. for today was canceled so it looks like I won't be able to have it completely fixed up prior to my defense coming in, but that's okay. More time to focus on tying my slides and paper together and working to finish my simulations.

I'm unbelievably stressed and anxious about it because my simulations aren't done yet. So today I'm going to pause on those and just catch my slides and paper up to where I currently am. Maybe a step away will help me to figure out how to fix the simulation problems when I go back to it tomorrow.

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I binged today. A lot. Way over maintenance. Almost unbelievably over. I was really upset about it for a while today. Especially considering my caloric goal and exercise and water goal were going so well until about 10 p.m. However, I won't lose hope. It's been an unbelievably rough week in terms of diet and this negates so much of my work BUT at least I'm trying. I'm starting fresh tomorrow. It makes sense with all the stress, so I just have to make sure to not get upset, start over, and try again! Here's to a better attempt today! Wooh!

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I treated myself to two servings of protein/fiber chocolate cereal. 😅 "treated", more like ate without thinking about it much. 400 Cals on top of the rest of my day. So no longer in a deficit/maintenance, but actually above maintenance. 🤣 but it was delicious. So..... I'll try better tomorrow!

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I was able to hit my water goal so far today.

I also hit my exercise goals today which was nice! I did one hour of stationary cycling this morning, which I've been really enjoying. My negative feedback would be THE SEAT REALLY HURTS. I tried adding some padding to it with 2 folded over towels on top, but it's just still so sore. I even checked my seat adjustment and such. Anyone have any advice on how to fix that? I also hit 10,000 steps today which was great and added in a few chair exercises at work.

For my meals today, I had a yogurt bowl [soy vanilla yogurt, raspberries, oats, sugar free maple syrup (296)], a tuna bowl [2 packs of tuna, lite mayo, Chipotle aioli, seasoning, arugula, spring mix, spinach, English cucumber, red onion (300)] with rice crackers (212.5), egg salad [4 hard boiled eggs mashed with some crumbled goat cheese and everything but the bagel seasoning (428) they were mashed after the photo 🤣] with rice crackers (212.5), and a chocolate oatmeal bar (120).

All of this will keep me in my deficit. To be honest, as of writing this, all I've had so far today is the egg salad with rice crackers. It was unbelievably filling for me earlier and I'm still full.... I KNOW I will eat everything else as my work shift goes on, but I just wanted to say that I was impressed how much that filled me up. The downside? Prices of eggs. I thankfully don't eat them that often anymore since I'm mindful of my grocery budget, but good for me to keep in mind going forward as one of the meals that keeps me full for several hours.

9 more days to my dissertation defense!! I've been so busy working on everything that I'm having to make sure I really give my mental health some daily focus. I made sure to listen to some music I enjoy while walking, I made sure to shower this morning, I even did some dish cleaning before leaving the house, I did 2 mindful breathing exercises today, and I named to myself: one thing I'm working on, one thing I'm proud I do, and one thing I think other people may like about me. It might be a while until I see some effects from this, but here's to always trying one day at a time! Wooh!

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This was pretty tasty. Just be aware it has a coconut flavoring as well.

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Guys, I love this meal:

Arugula, spring mix, spinach, red onion, pan cooked tempeh, English cucumber, lite mayo, Chipotle aioli, and seasonings.

The crackers are the nut thin almond rice crackers.

The salad itself is 367, with the crackers it's 601.

Delicious!