I’ve been eating a lot lately, because I’ve been hungry. There was probably 500 calories in this 200g plate of spaghetti. I probably ate another 1000 calories after dinner, but nothing junky.

I’m into buying fresh artisan bread these days. I like a veggie sandwich, because it has all the fibre and nutrients, and the bread is satisfying. I used avocado, humus, tomatoes, red onions, and 100g of bread. It all adds up to about 425 calories.

It’s fun eating lots of bread on a weightloss program. Everyone will tell you bread makes you fat. You hear it so often, you start to believe it. But Europeans didn’t get fat eating bread for hundreds of years. And bread is wonderful. So I ate this 150g half-baguette with dinner, and had two 50g buns with my veggie burgers today. That’s 250g of bread, totaling about 675 calories. That’s nothing.

Last week I was really tired, but still couldn’t sleep (4-6 hr/night). This is rare for me, and I figured something was off. I tried some chicken, and ate more starches, but I still felt crappy. So I channeled my inner hypochondriac, and with the help of Google, self-diagnosed myself with a B-12 deficiency! (See what happens when you only eat 150g/week of meat?!) Unable to sleep in the wee hours, I planned to get a blood B-12 test, and a B-12 injection in the morning.

You can order a B-12 test online at Request-A-Test for $49. You draw the blood at a local clinic, and the next day you get results:

This 370 pg/mL was lower than my target, which should be > 500 pg/mL, according to European and Japanese standards. This NIH cites 200-900 as normal, but says older people can show symptoms of deficiency at < 500 pg/mL.

I felt great after my B-12 injection, and even did back-to-back spin classes this morning. I may do two more classes tomorrow.

I now take a B-12 pill every day. All vegans probably know this already.

I wanted to check out Bread & Cie on 5th Ave today, to buy a loaf of their artisan bread. They had caprese on what looked like whole wheat pizza dough, but turned out to be pastry. Of course, we’re talking about olive oil on cheese on butter, and of course it was good. I would have passed on it if I knew what it was, but I didn’t kick myself over it. I didn’t eat the edges of the pastry. I almost never eat anything like this.

Unless a health-conscious chef puts a vegan-oriented item on the menu, things that “look” healthy really aren’t. Which makes complete sense, because you’re not going to sell much vegetables out of the pasty display case.

For the first half of dinner, I made some fresh salad rolls with chilled Japanese Soba noodles. I think Soba buckwheat noodles are usually served chilled. I added some Ponzu sauce to the noodles, and put them in the fridge while I went to spin. These ingredients made three salad rolls. The fresh basil, mint, and cilantro make the dish. I’ll probably make a veggie burger, then have some Weetabix and fruit for dessert.

BTW, if it isn’t clear, I prefer to eat this way. I’m not force-feeding myself vegetables. I love this stuff. That’s what makes losing weight so easy. I make fresh food, and eat until I’m full. Unlike hyper-palatable junk food, you can’t binge on this stuff.

Veggie burger for breakfast! When I don’t feel like potatoes in the morning, I make a Boca burger. It’s probably good to mix up the colors occasionally, at least for variety’s sake. There’s some differences in the nutritional content of red vs. yellow tomatoes, like it matters. Please pretend the photo is in focus.

I figured it was time to post another scary looking plate of pasta, so I made some foratini al pomodoro for breakfast. I bought the fresh pasta from Assenti’s, and made my the sauce from 6 roma tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, and fresh basil. Foratini is a huge noodle, and is a little chewy. I bought it to scare the low-carb’ers. I’ll buy spaghetti next time.

I learned to make the sauce in Italy. You blanch the tomatoes in near-boiling water for a minute or two, until you see the skin break. Then cut the tomatoes in half, and remove the skin and seeds. Keep only the fleshy part of the tomatoes, and purée them. Heat some olive oil in a saucepan, and fry a quartered clove of garlic until golden. Remove the garlic from the oil. Add in the puréed tomatoes and basil, salt & pepper, and reduce without a lid at medium heat for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently. It’s a snap.

I’ve lose weight at a steady 100g/day, without restricting calories. I eat a whole-foods, starch-based diet, with lots of vegetables and fruit. I eat a lot at night, usually right before bed. I eat huge quantities of food while watching television on the couch. I could probably lose weight faster if I didn’t always stuff myself. Well, I might try harder now, since they’re offering a $200+ prize at my small spin studio for the most weight % lost from Jan 1 to Feb 28.

It’d be great to lose 10kg in two months. If I could do it, it’d save me a month off my current schedule (3kg/month). Overall, it’d get me to my goals a lot quicker. I may start running, and I’ll definitely do more strength training. Ok, I’m in.