Dude, WTF..

Posted on May 30, 2012 | 14 Comments

Does the above title not say it all? Okay, I wanna throw a little pity party and that’s what I’m going to do. It all started yesterday afternoon when I realized the right side of my mouth felt super funky. I was getting major head aches and ear ache’s and figured it was just my mouth healing after my wisdom teeth surgery along with allergies. Not so. Always trust your gut instinct. I think I live by this. You need to trust yourself and what your body is telling you.

I knew that something was really wrong and that the allergy/mouth-healing excuse was probably not going to cut it. Basically, I was up all of last night, icing my mouth and just tossing and turning. When I finally got out of bed this morning, my face was swelling up. Enough was enough and I called the oral surgeon. Luckily, they had me come in at 9:30 AM and as soon as the doctor saw me, he asked me if I had eaten anything this morning. I knew that only meant one thing – something was wrong and he wanted to put me under anesthesia.

The doctor told me I had a really bad abscess underneath the gum where one of my wisdom teeth was removed and he wanted to work on it right then. I had eaten breakfast prior to seeing him, so I could not go to sleep for this procedure. Instead, the doctor administered the anesthesia to the right side of my mouth and got to work. It took about 25 minutes and was absolutely excruciating. This has been by far one of the most painful experiences of my life – as of today, my wisdom teeth were removed almost two weeks ago and I am still in so much pain. It has subsided a bit, but has never fully gone away. I now have a small drain in the back of the right side of my mouth along with two new pain killers.

So I’m praying to finally have all these wisdom-teeth issues resolved after this. Alright, pity party done.

Anyway, tell me what’s new with all of you snacky friends! Leave me some happy news from your lives.. I need some cheer :)

-Steph

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Posted in Wisdom Teeth

Memorial Day Weekend 2012

Posted on May 28, 2012 | 8 Comments

Hi hi, everyone. I hope you’re all nice and relaxed after a wonderful three (or for some of you lucky peep’s) four day weekend. Mine was spent in Sea Bright, New Jersey with a couple of my best friends. The entire weekend consisted of food, drinks, sun, beach, talking, going out, and doing it all over again. I haven’t had a weekend like this in a while, so I was really sad to see it end.

My friend Rebecca and I went down to Sea Bright very early on Saturday morning to meet up with our friend Eva and by the time we got there we were starving! We all knew we wanted to get brunch at The Turning Point; which has basically become our go-to breakfast/brunch spot. Let’s just say our eyes were bigger than our stomach’s. We ordered so much food and basically finished half of everything.


The above is the Turning Point’s ‘Fruit Bruschetta’ which I cannot not order every single time I eat there. It’s basically toasted pita points baked with cinnamon sugar and topped with a delicious fruit salad. I don’t need to say anything else.

Eva and Rebecca each ordered the Lobster Eggs Benedict:

I went for the ‘Fit and Trim Combo’ which was a honey wheat wrap filled with egg whites, sliced turkey sausage, spinach and tomatoes. It was supposed to come with a cup of oatmeal but I subbed mine for a cup of greek yogurt.

I freakin’ loved my choice for brunch but could only finish half of the wrap and half of the yogurt. Such a shame because it was so good! And yes, we all decided to order pancakes to split… which, surprise surprise, we could only each manage about five bites. Like I said, we felt hungrier than maybe we actually were.

A shot of my lovely friends:

A majority of our Saturday and Sunday were spent doing very stressful things like this:

Happy hour’s on our balcony facing the water wasn’t so bad either:

After some happy hour fun, the girls and I had reservations for a sushi place called Sawa which was right in town. It was definitely an enjoyable experience, as the food was very fresh and the service was fantastic.

We started with edamame (and a bottle of white vino) for the table to split:

Rebecca and I also split the Crispy Ginger Duck Roll, which was excellent:

For my entree, I went with the Wasabi Tuna Salad which was basically seared tuna and avocado over salad with ginger dressing. My picture didn’t come out that great — sorry :(

But I did get a nice, albeit blurry shot of Rebecca, Eva, and I!

On Sunday night, Rebecca actually had a wedding to go to, so Eva and I decided to check out a popular restaurant called Avenue. While kind of pricey, we had so much good food and a wonderful view of the ocean. I really can’t complain over here.

We started off with a little tin of fresh bread which was basically saving my life since we weren’t able to get reservations until 9:00 PM.

Eva and I decided that Grilled Octopus sounded delicious as a starter, so we agreed to split it — and I am very glad we did. It was so delicious and was the perfect light choice to begin our meal:

For her main course, Eva went with the mussels and french fries while I ordered the Exotic Mushroom and Tempeh Fricassee. The Mushroom and Tempeh Fricasse came with kale, leeks, brussels sprouts, and grilled cippolini onions. To die for.

And of course, no ‘real’ dinner is complete without dessert so we ordered the pistachio and chocolate crepe which was actually the perfect amount. We each had a few bites and our sweet tooth was satisfied:

Monday came and went, as we basically woke up, ate breakfast, and hit the road. I was so sad to leave, but incredibly grateful for such a fun and care-free trip. I think the beach and I are going to be very close friends this Summer.

Once I got back to good old NYC, I hit up the gym for an intense workout and re-stocked my kitchen with the healthy weekly essentials:

It felt amazing to really break a sweat and get back into the swing of things. Last week was virtually impossible to workout because of my wisdom teeth surgery and as you can see from the above pictures, the most working out I did was walking from restaurant to restaurant and pouring myself some Skinny Girl Margarita. This week I plan to eat as healthy as possible and get in some real, solid workouts!

Now I’m off to be lazy and make a salad for dinner. Have a great Monday evening :)

Question of the Night: What did you do this Memorial Day Weekend? Did you have good food/drinks?

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Posted in Beach, Brunch, Dinner, Drinks, Eating Out, Friends, Frozen Yogurt, Night Life, Restaurant Review, Sushi, Travel, Weekend, Workout

WIAW

Posted on May 23, 2012 | 10 Comments

Yessssirrrrr I was still able to throw together a lil’ What I Ate Wednesday, even with my wisdom teeth just being removed. As I’ve told you, I’ve basically been eating soup and yogurt, but they’re all different, and I just wanted to join Jenn’s party! Cause what food blogger doesn’t ;) ? So here’s some stuff I’ve been eating throughout the week. Thanks, Jenn!


Split Pea Soup :)


Starbucks Iced Coffee – no straw cause of them damn wisdom teeth.


Small Organic Plain Yogurt Parfait with Quinoa, Bulgar, and a little fruit. This was tougher to eat :( But worth it!


Chicken soup my room mate Brittany made me :) She even cut the chicken into itty bitty pieces so I could semi-chew!


Trader Joe’s Blueberry Yogurt with some Better’n Peanutbutter and Chia Seeds


After a quick workout of 30 minutes of walking and several leg exercises, I decided to order a trio of Mediterranean dips. I was just so hungry for real food. The dips came with some authentic Turkish bread which I tried to ‘chew’ as best as I could.

And that’s about it!

Question of the Night: What’s the best thing you ate today? Do you have a favorite kind of soup?

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Posted in Food, Greek Yogurt, Peanut Butter, WIAW

Battered and Bruised

Posted on May 21, 2012 | 12 Comments

Hi, peeps! Thanks for all of your words of encouragement about my wisdom teeth. However, when I walked into work today and my co-workers saw my face, they didn’t feel my post from yesterday did my face/pain any justice. I must admit, my face is really, really blown up making it quite difficult to sleep or even talk. I’m hoping that this is totally normal and I’m not having any weird side-effect’s. Luckily I have a check up appointment tomorrow morning because the surgeon just wants to make sure one socket in particular is healing okay since he said the tooth was pretty tough to get out.

If you don’t like to look at photos of bruises, stop reading here. This is what just one part of my chin looks like. I basically have black and blue’s front the top of my neck all throughout my chin:

So yeaaaa I look a little battered and bruised but I’m really hoping they go away by Thursday or Friday. Truthfully, I don’t even really look like myself. Pray for me that these bruises fade quickly because I’m going to the beach this weekend and don’t want to scare anyone there! The pain is still about the same and I’m sticking with soups, greek yogurt, and frozen yogurt right now.

It’s been a bit frustrating not being able to workout because I just want to get to the gym and bust out some cardio or a weight lifting session but to be honest, I have zero energy. The medicine makes me incredibly tired and just kind of ignoring the pain and dealing with my blown-up face is enough. I have my fingers crossed to get in a workout by Wed or Thurs but not trying to get my hopes up over here :(

Thanks to all my friends and everyone for checking in on me! You guys are the best!

Question of the Night: What are your plans for Memorial Day Weekend?

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Posted in Food, Wisdom Teeth

Wisdom Teeth Hell

Posted on May 20, 2012 | 12 Comments

Okay, have you ever had all four wisdom teeth removed? Because I just did this past Friday. I’m really not good with needles, blood, or being put to sleep for a surgery so I was super, super nervous. It took the doctor almost two hours to get all four teeth out because of how impacted they were :( Needless to say, I look like a chipmunk.

Since I’ve been stuck in my apartment all weekend, I don’t really have much new to report except for that I’ve been eating a lot of soup, froyo, and egg beaters with hummus:

I have to admit, even the egg beaters have been a bit difficult to manage. Now I’m off to sit outside on my porch to at least catch some sun.. originally I thought maybe I’d be able to go for a walk today, but it doesn’t really seem like that’s going to happen. Ugh!

Question of the Day: If you’ve had your wisdom teeth removed, how long did it take for the swelling to go down? Please tell me a day or two!!

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Posted in Food, Wisdom Teeth

Tea Time

Posted on May 17, 2012 | 14 Comments

Hey there, everyone! I know I kind of fell off the blog-world for a hot second, but I promise it was because I was pretty busy. One thing I promised myself when I started StephSnacks was that if I ever felt any form of stress to write a post, I wouldn’t write one. It’s just not worth it. All about the balance, people! Anyway, I wanted to show you how I spent my mother’s day (obviously with my mama!) because it was such a fun afternoon.

I was trying to brainstorm what to do for my mom when my friend Rebecca suggested that she and I both take our mom’s for tea! Luckily enough, there is a cute little restaurant called Harmony Tea Room in Westwood, NJ, which close to where my parents live. Rebecca’s mom and my mom have known eachother for years, so we knew this would be a great girls brunch!

Once seated, we ordered our respective pots of tea. I ordered the ‘Golden Monkey’ which is described as ‘a light bodied tea with a mild taste of honey‘. While I didn’t feel like it was completely ‘light bodied’, it was definitely delicious and I loved the touch of honey!

Once we placed our tea order, we also placed our order for scones. Each day, Harmony Tea makes several different kinds of fresh scones. Rebecca, her mom, and myself all ordered the white chocolate raspberry scone while my mom ordered the chocolate chip scone. The scones were amazeballs! To be quite honest, they actually tasted more like dense cookies, which was a-okay with me ;) ! Along with the scones, we were presented a tier with fresh fruit and other little goodies:

The scones are in the center of the tier! I tried to eat slowly because I knew what was coming next; our main order. When Rebecca made the reservation, the hostess asked what we would each like to eat as our main course. My mom, Rebecca, and I each went with the egg frittata which was cooked with cheddar cheese. Rebecca’s mom ordered the fresh toast. UM. HOLY CRAP. This was one of the lightest most flavorful frittata’s I have ever had. And the french toast? Completely decadent and to die for. Swoon <3

Sorry I didn’t get a picture of the french toast! But I did get one of our mama’s :)

All in all, both Rebecca’s mom and my mom were so happy with the tea and we all had such a fun, girly day.

Side note: I am getting ALL FOUR WISDOM TEETH pulled tomorrow! Does anyone have any advice!? I am SO scared! (I am such a baby when it comes to pain).

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Posted in Eating Out, Food, Restaurant Review

Moving On

Posted on May 14, 2012 | 2 Comments

Hey Guys. I want to clear a few things up. In regard to my post last night, I kind of thought about it more and I think what I was trying to say is that sometimes, any form of ‘uncertainty’ sets off a whole boat load of other doubts in my mind…. and all of those other doubts are completely un-related to what I was feeling uncertain about to begin with. I think that this is partially how my eating disorder started — I was consumed with complete uncertainty about my weight and my future college career, which in turn set off years of restrictive eating and way too much exercise. Yesterday was filled with uncertainty for me in terms of a few different things going on in my life which all led to my mind spiraling out of control with excessive thoughts of ‘who am I and where am I going?’. I’m still feeling traces of these thoughts today, but I am trying to remind myself that I will never have all of the answers.

That is something else — having all the answers. Why do we tend to want them all anyway? That doesn’t even seem like much fun. I’ve always been a ‘I want this and I am going to get it now’ type of person. That’s good and bad. It’s a character trait that sometimes drives me crazy.

When I read back to myself some of the posts’ I have written on this blog, I sometimes think ‘Damn Steph, you are one crazy chick’. But that’s really not the truth. I cant be that crazy to have realized years ago that I had a terrible eating issue and took it into my own hands to solve it. I cant be that crazy to sometimes realize that I feel like I’m having a mini panic attack and instantly begin to think of the best way to calm myself down. I’m actually doing okay. While things seem a little ‘off’ or ‘uncertain’ right now, I’m actually dealing with things okay. Which is a lot more than I can say a few years ago.

The hard truth is that we cannot control everything in our life; both big and little. We cannot control our families moving on, we cannot control (sometimes) how we feel about ourselves, we cannot control certain foods being served at parties, and we cannot control how others view us. When I was suffering with an eating disorder and was down to 89 pounds, I felt like a circus freak with all of the stares I got. People would ask my mom if she was crazy for letting
me go to California for college during this time in my life. The truth is is that I went to California before everything got so out of hand and happened to suffer with the problem from 3,000 miles away from home. The ED was no one’s fault and was something I couldn’t control—it was completely out of control.

During the years of my ED I literally felt like I was floating. I didn’t feel a thing. I didn’t like music anymore (which I’m obsessed with… more specifically, ‘Call Me Maybe’–please download it), I didn’t like socializing (I freakin’ love going out now), I didn’t like family/friends, I didn’t like food, I didn’t like my then-boyfriend (which is something I’ll maybe always feel guilty about but am trying to get over that), and most importantly didn’t like myself. I was just floating from day to day–working out, eating as little as possible, and trying to maintain straight A’s. I am so confused as to how I did it. Present-day, when I don’t eat every five hours I become an irritable bitch. So imagine basically not eating all day? Who would really like me? I sure as hell wouldn’t.

I now love so many things. I love love love my family and friends. I love my career and know it’s going to be great. I love my curves–I know they’re sexy! I love food and I love cocktails… a lot :P I love music. I love exercising in moderation. I love dating. I love blogging. I have my passions back. I have to remind myself of everything I love when I feel low and have a ‘trigger’ moment. I’m not being crazy, I’m just being honest.

I think that I’m just trying to help others at this point in my life. I have, for the most part, truly and completely packed up the part of my life when I suffered with an ED and have compartmentalized it somewhere else in my mind. I can’t dwell on it and wish it didn’t happen… because it happened. I just want other people to know that when the the going gets really friggen’ rough and you feel completely low, you CAN actually turn it back around. It took me about 4-5 years to make a complete full circle from 89 pounds to where I am today (I choose not to weigh myself present-day because that’s one less thing I don’t have to craze myself with). I’m not meaning for this to be some sort of inspirational speech. I just wanted to clarify where I currently am in my life after yesterday’s post. I want everyone reading to know that traumatic things have happened to me and I’m actually still standing and laughing whenever I get the chance.

Before ending this post, I want to thank four really special people in my life for sticking by me through all of my crap. I know they’re all reading this, so I feel it necessary to just say a quick, ‘I love you’. Gillian, my sister, who didn’t have me as a big sister to look up to during those really bad years–if I could take back that pain you experienced, I would. But at least we have now to make up for it. One of my best friends Rebecca for being my sound board during every turn in my life. We have disagreements and laughs and that’s what true friendship is; honesty and fun. My friend Jenn for constantly helping me to look at things with a fresh, positive perspective. No matter what the situation is I’m always able to kind of tilt my head and think, ‘huh, this makes more sense’, because of her. And my amazing friend Alexis who has known me since I was about 12 years old. No one tried to intervene more as a friend than Alexis during the years when I suffered with an eating disorder. She has seen me through every weight, every battle, and all of my lowest points and yet I never felt she was judging me. She’s always cheered me on.

I’m so lucky to have this blog and have the readers I do. I appreciate you all and hope that maybe this post has opened your eyes to what it is to ‘move on’ in your life after things had once been devastatingly bad. If anyone ever needs to reach out to me and is struggling with an eating issue of their own, PLEASE do not hesitate to email me (StephSnacks@gmail.com). I’ll do my very best to help you and listen.

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Posted in Uncategorized