Beth Knudson

Uncooked Quinoa

I’ve been experimenting a lot with quinoa. I grew to love it very quickly. It’s easy to cook and extremely versatile. It’s the only grain that’s a complete protein all on its own, so it’s a great addition to vegetarian dishes. And it adds a loving, feminine fluffiness to this otherwise manly bowl that I’m going to tell you about. Sorry I don’t have a photo for you this time. I’ll get one next time for sure. It’s a beautiful dish and it was so good that we gobbled it up before photos could be taken.

Beth and Weldon’s Bowl of Vegetarian Superpowers

Layer in your favorite shallow bowl:
About a third cup of Fritos, crushed. Not to dust, but you want the pieces smaller than regular Fritos.
About half a cup of cooked quinoa.
About half a cup of black beans. I used canned. You can get fancier if you want, but there’s really no need.
Half an avocado, diced.
Salt to taste.
Top with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt and a couple of spoonfuls of your favorite salsa. For us, it was Mrs. Renfro’s Roasted Salsa.

It’s really as simple as that. If you’re a die-hard carnivore, or even a flexitarian, you can sub diced chicken for the black beans. Weldon thinks you could have both, but I think that might be too much. It’s already a very filling dish. I’d choose one or the other.

Try it and you’ll join me in my new motto, Quinoa gives me superpowers!

From Twitter and my friend Bryan: bryanjd  At J’s practice yesterday, I was mistaken for a runner. Wait…I AM a runner. After 2.5 years & 50 lbs less, I’m still getting used to this.

This is a weird phenomenon, and one that I’ve experienced several times. Even after losing 95 pounds, it took a while for me to remember that I actually lost 95 pounds! It’s like I didn’t quite own my new body yet. Years later, I still have moments of disbelief, or dysmorphia, or whatever. Even during the process of weight loss, I still needed reminders.

A couple of years ago,  I was shopping with a friend for a hiking trip we were going on.  I tried on a pair of jeans in the size I’d been wearing for the past year. She took one look at me and said, “Those are too big for you.”

“No, this is my size,” I insisted.

“Maybe it WAS your size,” she said, “but now you need a smaller size.”

“No, that can’t be right,” I said, looking at her like she was crazy. “This is my size.”

“No,” she said, looking at me like I was crazy. “You need an 8.”

“AN 8?” I cried out. “That can’t be right!”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve never worn a size 8 in my whole life.”

“Well,” she said, bewildered by my rock-solid logic, “you do now.”

She made me put on a pair of size 8 jeans, and sure enough, they looked and felt better. I bought them, but still felt for a while like someone would come take them away from me since they “weren’t really mine.”

Isn’t it strange how it can take us a while to grow into our new body after a large weight loss (or grow out of our old one)? It’s like we continue to carry the energy of our former body even after the literal mass is gone.

Weight loss is as much work in the mind and emotions as it is in the physical body. There are many beliefs to be changed, negative habits to be replaced, and much unkind inner dialogue to reprogram. It’s most definitely a journey that doesn’t end when your goal weight appears on the scale.