Working Casual and Quinoa Muffins

When I was hired for this Diet Tech job, I knew going into it that it was a casual position. For those who are not familiar with what being a casual worker in a hospital setting, it basically means that you are given anywhere from 0-37.5 hours a week. Yep, read it again. ZERO - 37.5 hours a week. Being a casual means that you are the person they call when someone is sick or if someone needs a vacation. So I work a lot for the first few weeks because, a) they need to train me, and b) they can have me cover other Tech's upcoming vacation (which is what I am doing right now), and c) have it so that I can be "on call" and be capable of handling myself at the spur of the moment.

 So yes, being a causal kind of sucks because I can go a long time without working, which is what is going to happen in a few days. I have been working lots because I needed to get trained ASAP so that I could cover the vacation of my co-worker, but now that she is coming back in a few days, that means that I am not going to have any shifts for a while. I will be going 6 weeks without a shift which freaks me out since it's a scary idea to have zero income for that length of time. And it's hard to get a second job because I am basically on-call at all times. BUT! I talked to my boss about my concerns and that I was thinking about getting a second job serving. Then she said that it might screw things up since I will be starting full-time in a few months :) I guess they decided to give me a temporary full-time position to cover someone's maternity leave! I was stoked and relieved that they have enough confidence in me to cover a full-time position. I am still feeling shaky about my job since it is so much to take in, but knowing that they have that kind of confidence in me gives me a little more confidence in myself.

I have been tossing around ideas of what I could do to stay busy and make some money during that 6-week time, and the best I can come up with is dog-walking. I love dogs and I miss walking them, and I know that there must be people close by who need their dog walked while they are at work. I am in the process of making some posters and seeing what I can come up with. I wonder if anyone will respond? All I know is that I need to find something to keep me busy so that I am not crawling up the walls.

I will conclude this post with a recipe for Quinoa Muffins that I have been juggling with. I found it online a few weeks back and after making it once with poor success (the quinoa was undercooked due to poor instructions) I changed it around a bit to make it more my style. I have cooked quinoa dozens and dozens of times and when I was following the recipe I knew that it just wasn't right, but I followed it anyway because I'd never made this particular recipe before and wanted to give the recipe the benefit of a doubt. Unfortunately I was correct and the muffins were grainy and chewy. But after trying again with some tweaking of my own, here it is for your creating pleasure.

Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked quinoa (follow the recipe on the package. It's easier then having me explain the process and have you measure out exactly 2 cups)
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup ground flaxseed
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 apple, grated
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 12-cup muffin pan (or use liners).
2. Combine all of the dry ingredients and cooked quinoa in a bowl.
3. Combine all of the wet ingredients and the raisins in a bowl.
4. Pour the wet into the dry and mix together until just combined.
5. Pour into muffin pan and bake 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Take the muffins out of the pan and cool on a wire rack

Warning - your muffin pan will be really full and basically overflowing with batter. Do not feel the urge to make extras because these do not rise all that much.

Eavesdropping About Nutrition

Yesterday I was standing in line in the "Express Line" at Walmart (I say "Express Line" because it really didn't seem all that express-like) and the older lady in front of me and the older lady behind me were having a vibrant conversation about food and nutrition. And of course, I could not help but eavesdrop since I was literally in the middle of the conversation. In the 10 minutes or so that we waited in line, they brought up many many topics, but 2 of them really stuck in my memory.

The first was one of the woman's story about her grand-daughter who tried to become a vegetarian but had failed because she felt too tired all of the time so she went back to eating meat to get her energy levels back to normal. Then the woman went on and on about how a person needs meat to have energy and that vegetarians can't fuel themselves properly. Anyone who saw my face probably saw my lips purse together and my eyes roll up to the ceiling, just trying to keep my mouth shut. Of course vegetarians can fuel themselves adequately! The problem with people who suddenly become vegetarian is that they do not do the research necessary to learn how to eat the right foods and how to combine foods to make complete proteins. I know many vegetarians who live on cheese and bread and wonder why they feel like crap all of the time. Arrrg! If you want to be a healthy vegetarian with lots of energy, then do your homework and be willing to experiment with new foods and put out some effort to do it right. Here's a link to a great source of information if you want some facts about a healthy vegetarian diet.

The next quick conversation was about one the women's daughter-in-law. The woman said that she tried "that gluten free diet" and had no luck with it and actually gained weight. "So much for being healthy," she said. It took so much for me to keep quiet. SO MUCH! She didn't say anything else because it was her turn at the cash register, but how I interpreted these few sentences is that this daughter-in-law had the notion that a gluten-free diet is a diet to help people become healthy and lose weight. The thing that makes me angry about the gluten-free diet is that it has exploded onto the scene and you can find gluten-free products everywhere. While this is awesome for people with actual Celiac's Disease (an autoimmune response to a protein in products that contain wheat, barley and rye), people are interpreting this rush of gluten-free products as a health craze. Maybe it's because they are mostly kept in the Health Food section of the grocery store?

Anyway, the problem with gluten-free products is that most of them contain tons of added sugar and teeny tiny amounts of fibre. Going gluten-free is not a diet-craze. It's a lifestyle and way of eating for people with a serious disease which alters their ability to absorb nutrients - not a diet to help the rest of the population lose weight. It doesn't work that way and is not intended to work that way. People who have Celiac's Disease can obviously live very healthily and make good choices to keep their body weight "normal", just like the rest of us. We should be appreciative that we don't have to put out the extra money to purchase these products and enjoy the foods we can eat every day. Here's a link to the Canadian Celiac Association for more information.

I saw this posted on a friend's Facebook page and enjoyed it. It's got lots of great information about food and nutrition plus helps to clear up some huge misconceptions about the food that we eat, or don't eat.

Top 11 Biggest Lies of Mainstream Nutrition 

UPDATES!

It's hard to believe that it's already been 10 days since I wrote last! Life around here has been busy and even though busy is good, busy has left me feeling quite exhausted. I started my new job as a Diet Tech on the 4th  and the whole training experience was such a whirlwind of information, research, timelines, schedules and millions of other factors to learn the job and do it right. The first day was easy because it was just basic orientation in which I followed around my boss while she introduced me to people, showed me around the hospital and made me do a whole bunch of paperwork. No problem! Then the next day happened, and my brain nearly exploded. The job isn't particularly hard or anything: it's just that there is so much to learn about the processes and procedures in the hospital, plus all of meal plans to memorize and having to know all of the ingredients in every morsel of food that goes through the building so that I don't kill anyone, is intense.

I had 4 days of training and Monday was the first that I had to do the job solo. And yes, I was terrified. I was lucky because it was a holiday so the hospital was very quiet so I didn't feel too much pressure to be awesome since there weren't many special requests from nurses or the kitchen staff. Tomorrow I am working again (by myself) for the first time in which the hospital will be busy, so I am extra terrified. Eeek!

The crappy thing about this job are the hours that I work, which are 5:30am-5:30pm on weekdays and 5am-5pm on weekends. Well, it's not that the hours suck because I do not mind getting up early or working long hours since working 2 shifts is the equivalent in hours to working 3 shifts, so that's super cool. The problem with the hours is that I am not sleeping because I am petrified at the thought of sleeping in and getting there late. Getting there late is just not an option because the timeline of what I have to get done to get the breakfast meal out is so strict, that yeah...getting there late is not an option.

So every night I set an alarm on my alarm clock PLUS on my cell phone and place them both on my nightstand. But this is still futile because I always wake up hours before they are set to go off, then I wake up every 20 minutes because I am scared they won't go off. I also really hate the abrupt sensation of being woken up by an alarm, so I think my body and brain are trying to wake up before that startling sound of an alarm goes off. Either way, I just wish that I could sleep. I would be much more functional on the job.

So another update I need to talk about is my "Couch to 5K Running Program" that I have been doing for the past 12 days. Because of the long shifts I have been working, I wasn't able to keep on schedule like I should have been, plus Jaime had a party here on Saturday night so that didn't help me to get out after work. But I still have been doing it the best that I can and because I missed a couple days, I decided to stay on the Week 1 for a little longer. Hopefully tomorrow I will go for a run after work and attempt the beginning of Week 2! My job involves a lot of sitting so getting out for a run afterwards is really not that big of a deal at all and I look forward to it. I have actually been enjoying the running a lot more than I expected to. Maybe I'm as totally genetically cursed as I thought!

Couch to 5K

So I have been in Victoria for a week now and I am starting to get into the swing of things. Sort of. I don't have a routine really yet since my work schedule hasn't been established yet (I start work tomorrow!) but I am learning where things are a bit and getting to explore a little. Jaime and Grayson came home from Mexico on Friday night and it has been great to spend some time with them. Jaime has been telling me more about the area, good trails to walk and ride a bike on, plus all of the amazing perks about living in this area. For example, just down the hill is a rec center and if you bring a document proving that you live in the area, you can rent a bike for free! Plus the skating is free and there is a bowling alley down there too for super cheap if you're a resident. This is a lovely area. I wish that I was a bit closer to downtown but in the scheme of things, I'm glad that I am not close because it means a whole lot less shopping in the amazing stores down there. Shopping + no income = disaster.

Jaime is a runner and she lives in a great area for the hobby. There are trails and roads everywhere for runner, joggers, walkers, bikers...anyone who is mobile! She's been my inspiration to get up off my butt and try to become a runner. Well, probably more like a really slow jogger, but you get the gist. I've been wanting to start running for a while now, actually ever since a girl I know told me about a program called the Couch To 5K Running Program. I looked it over about a year ago and thought, "Yeah, I could do that," but then dismissed the notion of it all. I don't think the Kotyks are "made for running" people since we tend to have heavy bones, and that is a good enough excuse for me! But then maybe, just maybe, I could fight against my genetics and heavy bones and give it a try. What do I have to lose? (besides my knees...)

One of the small bridges I cross on the trail

Day 1 - You start with a brisk warm-up walk. Then you alternate 60 seconds of jogging with 90 seconds of walking, for a total of 20 minutes. Finish off with another 5 minute walk. 30 minutes a day, 3 days a week. Yeah I could do this. So today was Day 1 of the program and I think it went well. I started off by walking/jogging the trail that Jaime and I walked yesterday with her doggie Tank, then I hopped over to a trail which is right by the lake and continued along there. I know that a lot of people need inspiration to exercise, such as a health scare, weight gain, friends/family who cheer along with you, an active dog, bathing suit season or really just the desire to be more healthy. I found it easy to find inspiration while jogging along a well worn trail that circles a tranquil lake. As long as I have a good view, this shouldn't be all that terrible.

I'll keep you updated on my progress.

From Coast to Coast!

Oh, Hi! Haven't seen you for a while! Yes I know I've been a bit absent and not very dependable but I have a fairly good excuse and I hope that you understand. I've been a bit busy organizing, packing, moving and settling into my new home in Victoria. Victoria you ask? Yes, VICTORIA!

It all began a couple weeks ago when I applied for a job for a Diet Technician, but I never imagined that I would get contacted about my application since I did not have a couple of the "mandatory qualifications" listed on the website. I applied because I was feeling stuck and a bit too comfortable in my living situation. Yes I had a job I enjoyed very much and I love the people I worked with, and yes, I am a part-time student so working a very flexible and simple part-time serving job was ideal. I love my family and was happy to have them around, but I just felt stuck. I needed to change my routine and look into doing something that I am passionate for, which is nutrition. So when I got a call asking to set up and interview, I was absolutely floored at the idea of actually getting the position. 

Two phone calls and one rather terrible interview later, I somehow got hired as a Diet Technician for both Victoria General and Royal Jubilee Hospitals. It is a Casual position which is less than ideal, but it is my foot in the door, which is what I really need to get started. So I gave my notice at work, packed up my stuff into my trusty little Honda, hugged my family and hit the road with Victoria as my destination. Apart from some snowy passes and the 3:00 pm ferry being cancelled and me having to wait 2.5 hours for the next one, and getting lost for about 45 minutes after getting off of the ferry, the trip was good! I am staying with my cousin Jaime, her 7-year old son Grayson and their new pup Tank. She offered her spare room in the house and it was a no-brainer to accept the invitation. They are on vacation in Mexico for a few more days, so I have had the house to myself to get settled and situated in my new place.

The one problem is that I have no bed. I've been searching around for the best deal on a bed and have been putting off making a final decision on which to buy. It's a pretty big investment. The first night I slept on an air-mattress that they had all ready for me in the room. About half way through the night it slowly deflated and I was left with very little sleep and a sore back to face the day with. The next night I slept on the lower bunk of Grayson's bunk-bed and while it was pretty comfy, I was constantly worried about banging my head on the upper bunk or ladder which was right beside my head. I slept OK. Then last night I bunked in Grayson's bed again, only to be woken up 3 hours into my sleep by a "Ding" sound. Right as I dozed off again, it sounded again. Then again. Then again. I turned on the light, looked around the room to find the source of this sound only to come up empty handed. I'm thinking a toy somewhere is losing battery power and is "dinging" to tell us to replace the batteries. Ugh. So at 2 in the morning I pulled the mattress off of the bunk and dragged it into my bedroom. I needed to buy a bed.

Various flavours of
their macaroons

I drove out today to buy a bed. The place I decided to buy from is close to downtown Victoria so I decided to poke around town and do a little shopping. The thing that sucks about downtown Victoria is that there are so many amazing stores tucked into every crack and crevice that it is nearly impossible to get away without poking your head into every one you pass by. I tired so hard to stick to a schedule (if you've ever paid for parking in downtown Victoria then you will understand the need for swiftness) but was unsuccessful. And I am glad I was because I stumbled into a little gem of a store called Bon Macaron which is a tiny little bakery that makes only macaroons. As soon as I walked through the door I felt happy. The people standing at the counter trying to decide which tasty morsels to buy seemed so joyous for being there. And why shouldn't they? With savoury flavours such as White Truffle & Seat Salt, Goat Cheese & Fig, White Chocolate & Wasabi and Bacon Cream Cheese, plus sweet sensations such as Lemon, Cherry, Blueberry, Pistachio and Chocolate Lavender, how can one not be happy? (and overwhelmed with choice)

I decided to get 3, Goat Cheese & Fig, Salted Caramel and White Chocolate & Wasabi. I told the man at the counter (also the owner) that I had my eye on the empty plate of Chocolate & Lavender macaroons and wish that I had gotten there earlier to get one. He surprised me with one that he had behind the counter that he did not want to sell because of a finger indent in the side of the cookie. I willingly accepted his gift and am stoked to try each and every one. It is taking all of my energy to not gobble down each one, but I want to save them and enjoy them slowly. I ate the Goat Cheese one first and was surprised that it was sweeter then I expected, but still delicious and packed full of flavour. Yum yum yum!

It's crazy to think that I have literally moved from coat-to-coast across Canada in less than 5 months. Wow.

So my first day of work is on Monday and I am excited to have a couple more days to get settled before my new job begins. Wish me luck for my first day!

Be Mindful To Yourself

If there is anything that you will learn about the Kotyk family within a few hours of spending time with any one of us, it is that we are FAST eaters. Embarrassingly fast. Usually our plates are clean by the time a guest has finished pouring gravy into their mashed potato well. Friends and family who join us at the table are generally always left finishing their meal while we wait and stare at our long-ago emptied plates, wondering "Why is this person taking so long to eat?" It's bad and unhealthy to eat as quickly as we do and even though I have been trying to consciously eat more slowly and take my time in between bites, it's a hard habit to break. I try especially hard when I eat over at other people's houses because I don't want them to think that I was raised by wolves.

Last year I watched The Weight of a Nation on HBO which is a four-part documentary, and really enjoyed the part about Mindful Eating (which is on part 3 of the series). Mindless Eating is basically when you stuff your face and polish off your plate of food without giving it much thought. We don't appreciate, experience or really even truly enjoy the food because it's here and gone so quickly. According to The Center for Mindful Eating, "Mindful eating draws substantially on the use of mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness helps focus our attention and awareness on the present moment, which in turn, helps us disengage from habitual, unsatisfying and unskillful habits and behaviors. Engaging in mindful eating meditation practices on a regular basis can help us discover a far more satisfying relationship to food and eating than we ever imagined or experienced before." 

What the documentary showed was people who worked on trying to connect their brain and their body more by sitting, looking at the food, smelling the food and just being with the food before eating. They would stop and really focus on whether their desire to eat the food was based on hunger and the need to eat for nourishment or if the hunger was just boredom or emotion. Basically it was to pay attention to your internal self and then be able to make the choice of eating or not and not base the decision on past experiences (emotion, habit, routine, thoughts, feelings). And then if the person does decide to eat then it is a very accepting, non-judgmental and positive action full of attention to what is being eaten and appreciating the food and sensory experiences.

After I watched that documentary I really focused on stopping in between bites, chewing what I was eating to focus on the flavour and feel of it in my mouth and wait until I had swallowed until I took another bite. Yes I do forget A LOT of the time and find myself mindlessly shoveling mounds of food in my mouth, but I am so much better then how I used to be and will hopefully get better with time. If you're like me and want to change the way you eat, one meal at a time, try some of these Mindful Eating Strategies:

1) Start by recognizing that you are hungry before you start eating
2) Don't wait until you're famished
3) Choose food that will satisfy both your body and your mind
4) Eat without distractions
5) Eat when you're sitting down
6) Take a few breaths and center yourself before you begin eating
7) Appreciate the appearance and what looks the most appetizing
8) Appreciate the aroma and tastes of the food when you eat it
9) Pause for 2 minutes in the middle of eating
10) Stop eating as soon as you feel satisfied

There are more tips on amihungry.com and lots of other bits of information too. I think that eating like this is a great idea and would solve a lot of people's eating problems. So many digestive issues alone would be helped by people chewing their food properly and not overeating. Stopping and thinking about why you eat and stop obsessing about it and just enjoying it would be helpful in so many ways.

So next time you're loading your plate with a monster helping of Colander spaghetti, stop and think about what you're doing. Whether it be a plate of spaghetti, a crisp apple or piece of chocolate, be more mindful in your actions and appreciate your body and the nutrients that you fuel it with.


References: 

• 2006, The Center for Mindful Eating. http://www.tcme.org/
• 2004-2012 May, Michelle M.D. Mindful Eating: Get Out Of Autopilot. http://amihungry.com/mindful-eating.shtml

Pancake Memories

Growing up, our house always had the best pancakes. Period. Sleepovers were always awesome because the pancake breakfast which would be provided to our friends was always one of excitement and gratitude for serving such delicious pancakes. All of our friends agreed unanimously that they had never had pancakes as tasty as ours, and we knew it because yeah, they were just that good. Whenever I would go over to a friend’s house for a sleepover and pancakes were served for breakfast, I’d lie and say I wasn't hungry because I knew that they would be from a box and I could not ruin my taste buds with that filth.

Yes, we the Kotyks are a bit snobbish when it comes to pancakes. The recipe came down from my grandma, my dad’s mom, and when we were all young kids, every Sunday my dad would make a big bowl of pancake batter and fry up some flap-jacks for his hungry family. As we got older he passed the pancake baton onto us and we became the Sunday breakfast chefs, the family recipe stored forever in our memories.

I was out walking a few days ago and met up with a neighbour who is the father of a woman that my sister grew up with.  Megan shared many pancake breakfasts with us and he was telling me that as a Christmas gift this year, she received a package containing the ingredients (some of them anyway) and the recipe for Kotyk’s Pancakes from another girlfriend that my sister and his daughter grew up with who also loved our pancakes. I guess the two of them had been talking about memories of those magical breakfasts so the one sent the recipe over (which she must have stolen somehow;) as a gift.

When I heard this story I found it amazing. Even though my sister and these two women haven’t really spoken in years and years, their memories of Saturday night sleepovers and Sunday morning pancakes is still a topic for discussion and now our family recipe will be shared through at least two different families who will make pancakes for their kids, friends and family and be able to tell stories of where this recipe came from. If I hadn’t spoken with my neighbour that day I would not have known this story and I am glad that I do. We never know whose lives have been touched and whose fond memories are about your family. There are so many people that I have lost touch with but every now and then will smile thinking about due to a shared experience, and I wonder if they smile thinking about it too. 

Want a copy of my family's famous pancake recipe? Please send a money order of $10,000 to my email address and I will see what I can do.