Muke's growing journey

I managed to gain another pound since last week. I had enough to keep me full and I felt big and round every day.

I started losing steam around the middle of this week, though. I spent all of Tuesday afternoon and evening working on a sculpture, didn’t stop to eat. Since then haven’t really been in the mood for any of the food I made for this week… but I’ve been splurging and getting fast food instead, so I suppose that works out, except as far as the wallet goes.

Still going through a sort of ‘meh’ phase though. Haven’t really bothered to do the daily calorie counting—though I have been checking my recipes for calorie count and making sure I have stuff on the side if they’re pretty low—and haven’t really been feeling like pushing myself for much lately, so I guess I’m lucky I’ve been making progress anyway.

I was thinking one of the reasons I was getting writer’s block here was because I try to do this one big post every week. I had a kind of idea I might try to do just shorter updates—yes, they’re all short lately, but I mean intentionally short—every couple of days or so, and see if that were easier.

Love to you all.

Yes, my weight is slightly lower than it was last I posted it, but it is higher than last week, and last week was higher than the week before, so I’m taking what I can get.

I’m still a bit short on words and such, but luckily the camera was kind tonight and I’ve got a bit to share with y’all.

I don’t mean to keep posting so late in the week. But I keep running into the question of “what will I write about?” I used to have a sort of standard format I’d write in, with stats and things, and I had a kind of idea that it didn’t seem to be much, but looking back on it now I think it sort of works—at least as a starting point to help me out when I don’t know what else to put down, so long as it’s not the only thing I put down. I’ll probably try to bring that back starting next week.

In food-related stuff, one thing I’m enjoying this week is Greek potatoes, which is basically potatoes fried in olive oil and lemon juice, with salt and pepper, oregano and garlic. Really good stuff.

A couple of people have asked me to post recipes this week. I’m constantly writing up new recipes—I’d say it’s some sort of compulsion—though, as I’ve mentioned once or twice, I don’t usually post them here because I might confuse stray googlers. I plan on startin’ a separate blog for stuff like this sooner or later… but till then, here’s a couple for ya.

Anyway. Here are a couple of recipes I concocted this week. I’ve been using the heuristic I mentioned before of putting together recipes that focus on things I already have; I only had to buy the blueberries for the cake, and I already had like 3/4ths of the egg roll ingredients. If you make either of these, don’t at all feel constrained to follow directions to the letter: these things are made by experiment, and there’s certainly ways to do them better.

Blueberry sour cream cake

Ingredients

• 3/4 c sugar
• 3/4 c sour cream
• 5 Tbsp butter, melted
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 1/2 c flour
• 2 c blueberries
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 Tbsp baking powder

Instructions

1. Mix sugar, flour, salt, and baking powder together.
2. Beat in sour cream, eggs, butter, vanilla, and mix till smooth.
3. Fold in blueberries.
4. Pour into a greased and floured pan and bake at 325° till done—I used a 9″x13″ pan, and it was ready in about half an hour… your mileage may vary.

Calorie estimate for the whole cake is about 2450 calories.

Egg rolls (B)

Ingredients

• egg roll wrappers (about two packages)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 4 green onions
• 1 lb meat (recipe suggests pork; I used vegetarian chicken)
• 2/3 tsp salt
• 2 1/4 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 3/4 c bean sprouts (or one comparably-sized package)
• 6 c cabbage and carrot coleslaw mix (or one comparably-sized package)
• 1 2/3 c water
• 1 1/4 tsp ginger
• 1 1/4 c mushroom (I used shiitake)
• 1/3 c cilantro
• oil, to fry in

Directions are left as an exercise for the reader.

I don’t have a good calorie estimate on this one. The filling is about 800 calories total. The egg roll wrappers can run upwards of 1500, depending on how many you end up needing (some brands can be stuffed with more than others, I find) … and once you get to deep frying them all, it’ll only go up from there.

Anyway. Night, all, and see you next week.

Sorry for the lack of posts these past couple of weeks — I was off work, took a trip to Anthrocon in Pittsburgh, and in general spent a lot of time away from my blog engines.

Luckily I didn’t end up losing weight while I was gone — bein’ on a 26–28 hour long road trip and buying snacks at every gas station you stop at tends to help with that, I guess.

Anyway: Looks like gitbigger got a random mention in a New York Times article on an unrelated topic while I was out. The author of the article mentions the gaining blogosphere and gives Pete as an example. One thing he says in response stuck out:

[...] I imagine that the author went with my blog because it’s really the only one out there these days, despite her claims to the otherwise.

Gosh, thanks. :p

Anyway, to expand some horizons for anyone who might be reading this blog thinking it’s the only one out there, here’s some more links for you to explore—these are the gainer and gaining-related blogs I have in my RSS feed list that have updated in the past few months:

• 365 Days of Expansion, by Lambodara
• Fat Fox Studios, by Marcus Quinn (includes furry art)
• Full of Food, by Andrew
• Gaining Perspective, by SFBaydude02
• Growing Larger, by Niven
• Much Left to Love, by fatwolfskunk
• The Encourager, by Get A. Snack

Do y’all know of any other blogs out there that are still bein’ updated that I’m missin’ out on? Let me know! I’ve started a blogroll in the sidebar for ‘em.