Oh, that's a lot of info

Happy Wednesday! I hope you are all ready for a load of information. This is kind of my "about me" post, filled with all the personal things you may, or may not have, wanted to know.

If you read yesterday's post, you probably know that I had some blood work done. Most of the results came back in today. Overall, I'm healthy. But as I did mention before, my hormones are, well, totally lacking, still. The ongoing issue I have been trying to correct is hormone imbalance.

Since high school I have had on again, off again amenorrhea. I have been on birth control for years, taken myself off several times, and am currently very happy not taking it. In the beginning the birth control was to regulate and help my periods return. Well, this did help, for a while. Now, for the last two years, I have suffered from complete amenorrhea. Honestly, not having a monthly visitor does not bother me, except for the fact that it is probably very unhealthy to go this long without one. I have done everything that I can think of to correct this. Nothing, so far, has worked. But I'm staying positive.

Losing 50 pounds rather quickly in high school, I'm sure, did not help with the hormone situation. And then again, neither did suffering from an eating disorder (anorexia). But, since college, I have been upping my healthy fat intake, using maca (helps to regulate hormones), taken various herbs, and listened to my body when it comes to healthy amount of exercise. I am now, by far, healthier than I have ever been. So what is the deal with my missing periods??

I have tested all of my hormones, lipids, thyroid, insulin levels, essential fatty acids, and micronutrients (I work at an anti-aging doc's office). All are great except for the very low levels of estrogens and progesterone. These are the main hormones that regulate menstruation.

What I have done about it: I have tried taking thyroid meds, estrogen patches, increasing meat in my diet, and increasing fats. I used the thyroid for about 6 months then gave up. I have seen a few endocrinologists and a OB/GYN for the lack of menstruation and they just tell me to go back on birth control and that it's normal. No, it's not normal.

Honestly, at this point, my body's reproductive organs seem to be in hybernation mode...

Yes, it's strange and no one can figure out what exactly is going on with my body. So, if any of you out there have any ideas, bring 'em on! But for now, I'm still searching for an answer, a clue.

Well, enough about me...

And onto tonight's dinner...

We had sushi again! Mama Samaan had a craving so, the boyfriend's brother made us another round of sushi with avocado, cucumber, crab, and rice.

Thanks to the miracle of Google searching, I came across this recipe to compliment our sushi feast. Brought to you by the Vegan Lunch Box, this is a simple, yet tasty, Asian salad dressing.

Asian Miracle Dressing
Ingredients:

• 1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 tsp. Dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 TB maple syrup
• a pinch of salt
• a grind of pepper
• 1/2 tsp. low sodium soy sauce
• 1 tsp. toasted sesame oil
• 1 1/2 TB extra virgin olive oil
  

Combine and whisk with a fork until well-blended.

For our family dinner, I doubled the recipe. It came out great over rainbow chard and romaine leaves, tomatoes, and sesame seeds.

I have some exciting things coming up to announce... but not yet. Just you wait. They'll be good.

Good night!!

A little red, some carob, and yellow milk?

This morning the rain came down hard. As I lay awake in bed before the alarm went off, I listened to the wind blow hard against the house and the crashing of water drops tap on the windows. The storm outside continued as I made my way down the stairs to start my morning workout....

You like the intro to my day? Anyway, yes, I started my P90X Plyometrics workout three times this morning. Three times because I would get about five minutes into the actual workout, after the warm-up, and then the power would go out. But, third time's the charm. After my sweat-session, I blended up a giant spinach, frozen banana, chocolate hemp protein powder, cacao powder, vanilla, stevia, coconut water smoothie, and drove off to work in the rain. All of the streets and highways around here are flooded, so my morning commute was a bit slow. Before work I stopped off at the local laboratory to get my blood work done. Checking up on all my hormones, thyroid, and such.

Today I did have everything tested again. The last time I had blood work done was about 8 months ago... I have some hormone problems that I will talk more about tomorrow but for now... food!

Aside from getting drained of blood, today I did some uncooking and vegan baking. Take a look:

Vegan, Gluten-Free, Banana Carob Oat Cookies
Ingredients:

• 2 cups pureed bananas
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup brown rice flour
• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup vegan carob chips

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In large bowl, beat together bananas, coconut oil, maple syrup, and vanilla.
In another bowl, mix together flour, oats, cinnamon, and baking soda.

Add dry ingredients to the banana mixture, stirring only until batter is blended.
Fold in the carob chips.

Drop batter by heaping tablespoonfuls onto a nonstick baking sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes.


Then I made a creative and excellent drink to calm and cleanse the body. Turmeric Milk, recipe taken from yoga magazine, Yoga+ Joyful Living, helps to easy the stomach, aid in digestion and is a fantastic anti-inflammatory mixture. This sounds a little interesting and I'm sure you're thinking that the only recipes you've tried turmeric in is curry, but try it. I promise that you'll love it! My boyfriend even liked it!

Turmeric Milk

• 2 cups almond milk (or other milk sub)
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• pinch of grated ginger root and cracked pepper
• 1 cinnamon stick or good amount of ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp agave, or to taste

Heat the almond milk and all ingredients on stove, until very warm, or just before boiling, stirring continuously.

Enjoy this any time you need a healthy and warm treat!

That's it for now. More on today's lab results and my hormone sitch, tomorrow.

Have a great night!

It's raining, it's POURING

Good morning, Monday! Wow, the rain is coming down here! It's close to a monsoon outside! Thank goodness I'm nice and toasty warm (at work) with my little space heater.

So, I definitely had an eventfull and eventless weekend. Yes, it was mine and my boyfriend's anniversary this weekend. Two years! Wow! So, Friday, we had a dinner date at California Cafe. I did not get a chance to take pictures but I'll tell you, the food was great! We split the Spicy Tuna Poke (with pickled cucumer, avocado, micro greens, sriracha sauce) for an appetizer and I went with the Blackened Salmon over a strawberry beurre blanc sauce and the mashed Ginger Okinawa Sweet Potato (they were purple). The boyfriend got meat, meat, and more meat (Grilled Butcher's Steak with a demi glaze). Everything was delicious!!

Saturday, we decided to be lazy for most of the morning. I made a breakfast of baked acorn squash topped with a protein powder, almond milk, spirulina, cacao, agave mixture. Topped with sliced peaches.

Sorry for the blurry picture

And I decided to take a day's break for working out. Well, I didn't workout on Saturday but I did hold the plank pose for 4 minutes, 30 seconds. And let me just say, OUCH. It was pretty hard, but I am still going to try for 5 full minutes.
Anyway, Saturday we went wine tasting for the local Passport Event in our area. Mama Samaan was our designated driver, thank you for that, and we managed to hit six wineries. By the end, I was definitely, as the saying goes, three sheets to the wind. We came home, ate some dinner, and watched our Netflix'd, Land of the Lost (a horrible, horrible movie). I made it through about 20 minutes of the movie and fell asleep.

Looking back, I don't really remember taking this picture

but I guess I really wanted to show you my salad

Sunday, again, after lounging around, feeling like we went to a few too many wineries, the boyfriend and I went to rainy Santa Cruz and browsed some stores. We stopped at Charlie Hong Kong's for some organic, vegan curry, and returned to our little cabin-o-love.

Yep. That was it. That was our weekend. It was relaxing.

Oh, and I almost forgot the best part of all. The part that made the whole weekend eventful! At work, around 3:30 pm, Friday afternoon, I visited the ladies room, and as I flushed the toilet, my phone decided to venture out of my pocket and into the flushing bowl. And then... it disappeared. Gone.

I just stared at the now empty toilet for a good long while, thinking, "Really?! I just flushed my phone?!"
And so that story turned into having one of our patients come (also a construction company owner) to take the whole toilet apart and getting my phone (which rang for about an hour before it completely died! We could hear it vibrating in the wall when we called it). Sad to say, my phone will not turn on now. And here I thought that only happened in the movies...

(source)

Enjoy your day! I'm hoping mine takes a turn for the better. It's been that kind of a morning.

Sushi Chef and Dinner Date Friday

Oh it's Friday. I love Friday. I love being off of work on Friday. Can you tell I would rather not be at work sometimes... anyway...

Last night, my boyfriend and I spent a some time putting all of our change into those little coin roll containers. And can you believe it, after all that hard work was over, we got paid $100.50. That was the grand total from all of the change (mostly my boyfriend's, since he pays cash for everything and disregards the change) that has been put into a jar from various places around the house. Yeah, it's worth saving all those loose monies for a long time, just to get a large end result. And, as I told you from yesterday's post, tonight, we are going on a little date to celebrate our 2 year anniversary. Can't wait!!

Last night, my boyfriend's brother made the whole family sushi! And he did a fantastic job with the presentation! I helped out by making an Asian cabbage salad and homemade raw, vegan pickled ginger, recipe found here.

The first roll was an Inside-Out Dragon Roll. It was perfect.

His station

His supplies

The master at work

 

Unagi Appetizers

My supplies

 My plate

Asian Cabbage Salad

So that was our dinner. It was fun to watch the boyfriend's brother make the sushi and definitely good eating it.

I hope everyone enjoys their Friday night... tomorrow you'll get a recap of tonight's dinner date.

Weekend's (anniversary) To Do's:

Friday night- date with the boyfriend

Saturday- wine tasting (YAY! I haven't touched alcohol, wine included, in 2 weeks!) with the boyfriend

Sunday- Indoor rock climbing

Can't wait for 5:00 pm!