My first post in 2012 and it’s already January 19th! Someone’s been a bad, bad girl, but that’s about to change.

I love resolutions, I make them all year round ( and post little reminder notes all over my room) but I especially love them on new years because it always feels like a clean slate. Whatever happened in 2011 is over and now I can decide who I want to be in 2012 and what I want my life to be like. This year, I’ve made some big personal ones, to finally get my own apartment with out roommates and to take a leap of faith when it comes to my career, to name just two. Only 19 days in and I can tell you it’s already been pretty exciting. Don’t you love that feeling when your completely overwhelmed and stressed but somehow you know it’s all going to be worth it? I’m pretty sure it’s one of my favorites.

Maybe I’ll touch back on my personal resolutions at a later date but for now I want to focus on my GoSweetandSkinny resolutions! First, I promise to post more frequently, this starts today! I’m aiming to be posting at least once a day, five days a week minimum. I want to keep updating the site so that you guys have a reason to come back and see what’s going on.

Secondly, I’ve decided to expand a bit. After some careful thought and reflection over the holidays, I’ve decided that I want GoSweetandSkinny to be about so much more than just baking. Yes, I love baking and yes, I love vegan baking even more but that’s not all my life’s about. In fact, that’s a very small part of my actual life. Don’t worry, there will still be more recipes to come and I’m not about to stop baking but now I’d like sweet and skinny to relate to every aspect of your life. I want this to be about having a sweet life and being skinny (staying fit) while doing it. Having your cake and eating it too, in all aspects of your life.

So look out for upcoming posts that will be more, well in Oprah’s words, about “having your best life”. I’m not putting any limits on what it could be but I want this to become a place where you can be inspired and find things you can take away for yourself. Which is why my next big undertaking is going to be a webseries for the site called “Sweet Talk” where I will interview successful, entrepreneurial woman while making their favorite baked goods. With so many wonderful women doing incredible things, I think it would be incredibly valuable to share there story, ask them what hurdles they faced and what advice they have to give us twenty-somethings still trying to find our way. I know, I’d sure like to know!

Lots of exciting things going on for GoSweetandSkinny in 2012, I’m thrilled to get started.

Have some ideas for future articles or ways to contribute? Want to share your new years resolutions with me? I’d love to hear! email me at gosweetandskinny@gmail.com

As much as I’d hate to admit it, I am only human and tonight has been one of those nights. The ones where you spend hours diligently resisting a cookie craving, make tea, eat yogurt, call a friend, you know all those ‘get your mind off the craving’ activities you find in your favorite healthy living magazine. And yet, they all offer no help. There I was at 10pm and I surrendered. I went out to the supermarket and I bought some sugar cookies. I don’t even like store-bought cookies! I was desperate and certainly not proud of what I was doing.

Funny enough, four cookies deep and cutting myself off from the rest, amidst the shame of my indulgence, something miraculous happened : I regained my focus. All of a sudden, the writing and work I had been trying to do for the past few hours were at the forefront of my mind. I had killed all those sabotaging cookie fantasies simply by giving in.

While I’m not saying that this is an excuse to put yourself in full on sugar coma everytime you get an inkling for a brownie, I think there is a lesson to be learned. If I had gone out and got a cookie perhaps after an hour of thinking about it, maybe I would have had only one and maybe my focus wouldn’t have been quite so effected. I guess this one comes down to ‘know thyself’, sometimes it’s okay to indulge a little, just not all the time and always remember to get back on track and on with your life!

Some great treats to get you through ‘those nights’ are Skinny Cow Ice Cream, No Pudge Brownies and my recipe for ‘Chocolate Somethings’ which I’ll post right away.

Have you heard about the Dukan Diet? Ever since rumor got around that it was Kate Middleton’s pre-wedding weight loss diet of choice, I knew I had to purchase the book. Don’t hate me, I can be a sucker for the flavor of the week diet. Now, to give you the spark notes version of what it entails, it’s a primarily protein based menu. For the first 3-7 days all you can eat is protein and then following that you alternate protein only days with vegetable/protein days. After reading this, I debated whether or not this was even possible for some one who “only eats fish occasionally” to do and let me tell it was no walk in the park!

The first two days were pure torture for me, ah, who I am I kidding, the whole thing was pretty hard. First, it’s not easy to pack anything to take with you for the day when the things you can eat consist of eggs, meat or fish. Sometimes it’s not even easy to grab something that fits into your ‘allowed’ foods on the go. (And I live in NYC where food options are seemingly endless) However, Dukan does give you a recipe for a “Dukan Galette” which is pretty much a protein pancake that he allows you to have once a day and this turned out to be a god-sent! In a later post, I’ll give you the recipe along with some fun variations I’ve created, of course!

Okay, okay, I’ll get to the good stuff, I did lose a few pounds and if you had more to lose, I’m sure you’d lose more. However, what really surprised me was the effect it had on my skin! After two days of no carbs at all and eating purely protein my skin looked FABULOUS! Most of my acne cleared up and my face looked great. This could have also been helped by the large amount of water you MUST drink while doing the beginning stages of this diet but I think I have mostly the lack of carbohydrates to thank for this.

So overall, I lost a little weight and I gained a few enlightening tools. I will continue to watch my carbohydrate intake (especially white carbs) because I love how my skin is looking and somehow that is even more gratifying than the numbers going down on the scale to me. I also, am completely in love with my protein pancake creation and think that it will become a regular on my menu! Thank you Mr. Dukan!

Here I am, sitting in my favorite East Village cafe, for the first time in a few weeks. And while, perhaps I feel slightly guilty for the indulgent piece of Vegan Red Velvet Cake, I’ve allowed myself to indulge in, I feel even more guilty about how much I’ve slacked off on posting for GoSweet&Skinny! So I’d like to apologize for being less then dedicated to updating this website. I have recently had pleasure of having a lot of film projects come up and steal my attention and energy. And while they will be continuing into the winter, I am fully committed to making this website current and improving my posts! I’m also excited to announce that by September, I will be posting video clips of myself making some of my favorite recipes!

Just cause it’s the holidays is not an excuse to binge eat and ruin all the hard work you’ve been putting in all year! Yes, I know those comfy winter sweaters and stretchy pants make it oh so easy to forget how stuffed we are but the scale won’t. With Thanksgiving upon us, I decided I’d kick off our holiday tips but I’m sure they’ll be more to come before Christmas/Hannukah.

Thanksgiving Eve : I bet some people gain more weight on the night before Thanksgiving than on the day itself. Just because alcohol is a liquid does not mean it has any less calories! Be conscious of what you put into your body, stick to clear beverages with soda water and low calorie light beers. You’ll still get drunk I promise, which is what leads me to my next point. Don’t get drunk and binge eat. Yes, it’s 4am and I know that pizza looks appetizing but stop and think of how you’ll feel in the AM and resist!!

Wear tight clothes. Do it. Trust me. You’ll have a much better indicator of how full you are and be more likely to pace the amount of food you eat. That comfy sweat shirt is not your friend when it comes to holiday eating. Show off your cute little figure in a cute little dress or tight jeans and you’ll help keep your figure that way.

Veggies!! Vegetables are your friend. Learn to love them. While your impatiently waiting for your turkey or tofurkey to be ready, let the the vegetables in your crudite keep your mouth and tummy busy. Not only will you fill up on all that fiber and be less likely to overdose on stuffing or sweet potato caserole but you’ll save your self hundred of calories by avoiding the cheese/crackers or any other dip/fried/fattening h’ors deurves.

Help the host: (if your not hosting) Not only is this polite but it will also keep you from vegetating on the couch while watching football and eating chips. Keep yourself busy setting things up or preparing food and you won’t be tempted to eat out of boredom. Your friend or family member will surely appreciate the help and we can keep your true intentions between us.

Good luck! Remember, it’s only one day, if you want to indulge pick your favorite dish and go for it but try to remember moderation and portion control. And a gym sesh on Friday if all else fails..

So after a long hiatus and completely burying the idea of blogging about my little cooking/healthy eating fascination under a mountain of unfulfilling part time jobs, I am back, thanks to a DVD of “Julie and Julia” I received in the mail a few days ago. And I decided tonight, after a particularly amazing yoga class, that I would treat myself to an evening of watching it while baking some vegan oatmeal muffins. Lo and behold, the muffins are AMAZING (and I will post the recipe! ) and here I am at my computer resurrecting this wonderful website back from the dead.

So where have I been and what have I been eating? Well, shortly after finishing my juice fast, I went back to the completely vegan side and stopped dabbling in animal products. My body feels fantastic and I really don’t have a terribly hard time eating healthy and staying full. In fact, being vegan has given me a kind of freedom I have never had before in my life. It gives me the freedom of not being on a diet. I don’t count calories anymore and I eat till I’m full. If I can make it vegan, I can eat it. Bagels, muffins, cookies, ice cream, anything at all I want, I allow myself to eat it. Now let’s be honest, I don’t live on these kind of treats or I would surely gain weight, but I never deny myself them. It’s a whole new world for me. I’m pretty sure this is the longest in my life I have gone without being on a diet. To be honest, I now finally understand what they mean when they say ‘it can’t be a diet, it has to be a lifestyle’. Vegan is my lifestyle, it’s not some crazy fad I’m doing for the next 3 months till bathing suit season or something ridiculous like that, it’s just how I eat.

I don’t want to preach and I would never force my views on anyone else (or judge them for eating meat!) but I figured I’d explain a little more about my particular lifestyle choice because I know it might seem a bit extreme. I love animals, yes, I have an awesome little Westie named Charlie who might as well be my little brother. However, I am not a vegan ONLY because of this. I truly disagree with the way our animals are handled in mass quantities and pretty much bred to be slaughtered. It’s gross and I personally don’t need that kind of karma in my life but for the sake of food chain logic, let’s go beyond that. The hormones, the pesticides, the infections, and the illnesses of these animals are seeping into our food supply and that is truly what I want to stay away from. Cows, chickens, pigs, etc are fed hormones to make them grow faster and gain weight so that the farms can expedite the slaughtering process. Now I absolutely do not need those kinds of hormones in my system, nooo thannk youu! Not to mentions the illnesses and infections these animals get because of the treacherous conditions they live in or the pesticides put on the grass/greens their fed – completely unappetizing.

Enough about that though, in all fairness I must admit I do slip off the vegan wagon from time to time and as a lover of food and cooking, it is hard to deny how amazing some animal products taste. I can’t promise I’ll be vegan for the rest of my life but I’m pretty sure I’ll always err toward the vegan side of the scale. I confess to missing fish (particularly salmon) and brie the most but I don’t ever see myself eating steak or drinking milk again.

* If your interested in learning more about living vegan, I strongly recommend checking out the books “The Kind Diet” and “Skinny Bitch”.

It’s been a long, exhausting road for me when it comes to diets and exercise. I’ve tried everything, well almost everything, you could imagine. I’ve done Weight Watchers, Low-Carb, Low-Cal, Vegan, Juice fasts, etc. The thing is I’m not fat. In fact, some would even classify me on the thin side but what I haven’t found is something I can stick with. I’m on a constant search for a diet to end all diets or something to get me back on track. I’m also a gym rat. I love cardio and I adore yoga.  This has been my saving grace a lot of the time when I end another diet in disaster. However, this site is going to change all that. I’m going to stick it through, explore my options and help us both find the best lifestyle choices to stay skinny in the city.

However, I felt as a way to jump into this exploration, what better way to start than doing a cleanse! And what better cleanse than “The Master Cleanse”. I know some may feel skeptical or suspicious about the legitimacy of the Master Cleanse and I agree with your feelings completely and this is partly why I’m going to try it. I feel like the Master Cleanse is the urban legend of all detox diets. Everyone has heard about it, most people know someone who’s done it, and everyone wants to know if Beyonce really did lose 20lbs when she did it for a film. I’ve tried it before and was unsuccessful simply and most glaringly because I was able to talk myself out of doing it after a day or two. It’s so controversial, it’s easy to rationalize not doing it. To be completely honest, I’m flip-flopping between it or a juice fast to kick off this blog for numerous reasons. Either way, I think a cleanse/fast for a few days is a great way (for me personally) to get myself back in to a healthy mind set. After a few days (no need to torture yourself longer than a week and not wise to do for your metabolism anyway) of light/limited consumption you start to feel rejuvenated, refreshed and lighter. Once it’s over, decisions to make healthy choices become easier because you want to keep your body on the route to optimal health and feeling good.

Be warned, these are not for everyone! If you think at the end of your 5 -day cleanse or what not you are going to order a double-cheeseburger and fries from Mc Donalds..don’t even waste your time! Your metabolism does slow down, not dramatically, but enough to where you will put on weight if you go back to eat junk when your done. Why ruin all that hard work? Just don’t do it! Everyone is different, so if this is not for you just follow along my journey and begin your own. What’s your biggest vice? Do you eat a lot of fast food? Eat multiple servings at dinner? Load up on soda and sugary lattes? Whatever it is for you, take a baby steps, instead of fasting make the decision to only order take out one day this week or only have one can of soda a day. A little cut back can go a long way on the road to getting healthy and skinny!