I am enough, and that’s ok!

This little message refers to my eats too. We had a pizza party at work, so I had pizza… and cake! No need to worry about. I’m going with the flow, and I like it

BREAKFAST

Holey Donuts jumbo reduced fat cinnamon bun

I’ve been ordering a few boxes once in a while, when there is a free shipping promotion. It’s such a fun “treat” breakfast!

MID-AFTERNOON SNACKS

Pretty self-explanatory, I think

LUNCH

A little of this…

And a little of that…

I am proud to say that I had 2 slices of pizza and only 1 piece of cake. I could have had more, but I didn’t embrace the “screw it, I’m already being bad so might as well be really bad” mentality and consumed treat foods in reasonable portions. Yay me!

DINNER

Dinner was SO delicious today! As part of CEiMB, I made Ellie Krieger’s recipe for maple mustard chicken thighs, which this week was hosted by Handle the Heat (Tessa has amazing pictures!!). Every review I read about this recipe said it was great, so I had high expectations. I’m happy to report they were more than met!

We very rarely eat chicken thighs since they are higher in fat than white meat in the chicken breasts, so this was a bit of a treat. I made sure to trim all visible fat and kept the portions at bay. The whole grain mustard added such a fun texture – the little grains just popped in your mouth! Some high quality maple syrup balanced the spiciness of the mustard perfectly. Delicious!

As a side dish, I made some haricots verts by following this recipe from Cooking Light. The mustard based vinaigrette tied the beans perfectly with the mustardy chicken (Btw, I used 1/2 balsamic vinegar and 1/2 red wine vinegar instead of sherry vinegar and subbed pepitas for sliced almonds). Awesome, awesome dinner!! Adam and I had a hard time not going for seconds and polishing everything off.

Uh-oh… caught red handed (kinda ). Enjoying some dark chocolate with almonds while blogging… I can’t go to bed without a little dessert!

So yeah, no exercise today. There was just not enough time in the day today, and I’m cool with it.

How do you feel about all the challenges going on in the blog world? Love them, hate them? Do they motivate you or discourage you? I keep flip-flopping on that one.

If you missed my somersaults giveaway, make sure to click here. Yum! Oh and please follow me on Twitter (my twitter name is healthyandsane). I just joined and I feel lonely there all by myself!!!

More about today’s “last chance workout” in a bit… let’s get to today’s eats

BREAKFAST

I have some grape tomatoes that are on their last leg, so I put them to good use, together with some light feta and avocado.  This is a really delicious omelet combo!  I used 1 egg and 2 egg whites and it made for a beast of an omelet.  I ate every bite though

The perfect bite, with everything on one fork

I then finalized our food menu for the week and off we went grocery shopping!

SNACKS

Is it just us, or does grocery shopping take forever in your household too?  We went to 3 different stores: TJ’s, Whole Foods and Shaw’s (a local supermarket chain) and it seriously took hours.  I was starving by the time we got home and actually ate 1/2 of this 18 Rabbits bar before putting the groceries away.

I found this bar on my most recent trip to New York. It’s handmade in San Francisco and I really like supporting local producers (even if they’re not local to me, but they’re still micro-producers in the US).  They had many flavors but the Funky Figs and Cherries especially caught my eye.  I could not wait to give this baby a try!

Here is what it looks like on the inside:

Lots of oats, that’s for sure!  I have to tell you, I was a bit disappointed!  It just tasted like chewy oats… I really felt like a rabbit!  This bar was also $3, which is mighty expensive.  Have any of you tried this company’s products before?  I don’t think I’ve ever seen it on other blogs…

There was an interesting message on the package though – they explain how they try to make it as close to 100% organic as possible but were only able to get to 83%.  Sourcing 100% of the organic ingredients would have entailed going outside the state or even the country and they prefer to work with local farmers in California only.  I really appreciated this explanation and wonder what means larger companies go to in order to produce a 100% organic product.

Anyways, enough on this bar, I also had an apricot

I was planning on working out after grocery shopping but this whole hunger thing really threw me off.  Even after inhaling the snacks above I was hungry.  I didn’t know what to do.  I let the food digest a little and decided to break up my exercise.  I went to my new favorite thing for a fun workout, our cable box.

WORKOUT PART I

I took the Thighs and Buns Yoga, which took 20 minutes and then the ABSolutely Amazing 10 minute abs class.  I won’t bore you with the stats, but I did burn 88 calories and my heart rate shot up to 202 when I was holding a plank! –> 1 HBBC point

Then I made LUNCH

I didn’t really plan anything so I threw together stuff we had in the fridge: wild rice, avocado, grape tomatoes, deli turkey and a dollop of pesto sauce. It was really really good!

And a baby apple for dessert:

About 20 minutes later I had some real dessert

After about an hour I was ready for part deux of my workout, the real deal!

WORKOUT – PART II

I started with a 5 mile run that went like this:

• 0.15 mile warmup walk at 4.3 mph
• 0.35 mile warmup run at 6.5 mph
• 8 x 0.15 mile intervals at 8.0, 8.5, 9.0, 9.5, 9.5, 9.5, 9.0, 9.2 with 8 x 0.15 mile recovery intervals at 6.1-6.3 mph – Phew!
• Ran until I hit 5 miles, starting at 6.2 mph, increasing by 0.1 mph every 0.15 miles.  

Complicated enough? I really just made it up as I went – I just knew I wanted to complete the 8 intervals and run for about 5 miles.

Then I did 15 minutes on the stationary bike and another 30 minutes on the elliptical.

Second workout’s stats:

• Duration: 1:29
• Calories burnt: 844
• Ave HR:155, Max HR: 181 (funny how a plank gets my heart rate higher than a run at 9.5 mph!)

Total HBBC points at they gym: 8, total for the challenge 97.9

DINNER

I used this recipe for Slurp-tastic herb noodles.  With a name like that, how could I not add it to the “to-make” list?!  All the ingredients sounded amazing and after finding some great looking fresh spinach at Whole Foods for a little over a $1, I was even more excited!  I doubled the recipe to make 4 servings.  Here is the final product, a.k.a my bowl:

I was hoping for something a lot thicker – not sure why.  It was nice but not knock-your-socks off amazing.  My husband didn’t care for it, which made me sad.  We’re both taking the leftovers to work, though.  I’m not too upset about it, but there was a bit of kicking and screaming on his part (a slight exaggeration :) )

And now I’m beat!  Hope you all had a nice and relaxing weekend!

Total calories for the day: 1343

New Year’s Day was kind of weird, food wise.  I woke up to a very messy, post-party apartment.  The weather was nasty so I just wanted to stay in my house clothes and do a whole lot of nothing.  I did make a delicious breakfast: a yogurt parfait, my favorite!

This is about 1/2 of a mango, 3/4 cup of TJ’s nonfat European style yogurt, a handful of Kashi Golean cereal and 2/3 of the TJ’s nutty trek mix.  Soo good!  There was also a large cup of coffee with skim milk and 1 tsp of agave nectar, of course!

Then the munchies hit a little bit.  It was just dreary and some of the food we didn’t put away last night was still on the table.  I grabbed a few small pita chips (unphotographed) and this cookie:

It had a date filling.  Multiply this picture by 2 and then another similar one with the cherry filling.

I proceeded doing a whole lot of Food Network watching.  It was fun to just relax with my husband (he was even watching the shows with me!) but I was feeling a little guilty about not exercising.  The couch was just oh so comfy!

Eventually I got hungry watching other people make/eat delicious food, so I made a buffalo chicken dip sandwich with some baby carrots on the side.  No calorie counting today, but I was still trying to be reasonable with my eating and not overeat for no reason (that’s no way of starting the year!).  This dip isn’t so bad for you – I made it with boiled/then shredded chicken, reduced fat cream cheese, 2% shredded cheese and low fat ranch dressing.  Don’t get me wrong, this is no health food, but still – not that bad. 

And for dessert, I had a sweet sloop.  Ok, I had 2 sweet sloops

And a little later I was hungry again, so I had an apple:

And then I wanted more food!  Since I wanted it to be satisfying physically and mentally, I made a nice cup of tea and made one of my favorite snacks: a banana/nut butter wrap.  I used some Dark Chocolate Dreams pb mixed with plain chunky pb, 1/2 banana on a TJ’s low carb wrap.  This was then topped with some berry fruit spread after I decided it still needed a little something  I should have just had it with Barney Butter… I don’t know why I fight it sometimes

See what I mean about weird eating?  Very very snacky today…

At around 8pm, I still haven’t gone to the gym!  I knew I’d feel 2000% better if I did, so I put away my laptop, put on some gym clothes, grabbed my new toy HRM and went downstairs to the gym in my apartment building.  Oh, I grabbed the 3s and 5s treadmill workout printout.  I was actually excited to get off my butt and move a little!

So here is what I did today: 45 min 3s and 5s workout (like last time, I increased my speed by 0.3 mph and ran the recovery intervals at 6.3 mph instead of walking) = 5.15 miles + 30 min ET + 15 min stationary bike = 8.15 HBBC points.  Here are my stats (now that I have my lovely HRM I can share them with you )

• Duration: 1 hour 31 minutes
• Calories burnt: 879 (amazing!)
• Maximum HR: 174, Average HR: 154

Going back a few days since I haven’t posted my workouts since last Saturday (there were only 2 of them… yeah yeah I was bad again!) here is a quick recap since we’re counting HBBC points here.

Sun: 45 min circuit training (one of the workouts from Jillian Michael’s Winning by Losing book) + 15 min ET = 4 points

Tue: 15 min abs (0.5 points), 30 minute bootcamp class (2 points), 10 min stretching (0.33 points), 45 min pilates (3 points), 0.75 mile run (0.75 points) = 6.58 ~ 6.6

So total HBBC points for the entire challenge are 77.55.  I would still really love to get to 100, but I’m not sure if it’s possible.  I really enjoy challenging myself so I’ll definitely do my best to try to squeeze in a little extra exercise over the next 3 days so I can get there!

SO HAPPY I went to the gym after all.  I had an amazing workout and to think that I almost missed it!

Anyways, it was past 10pm when I got back so I just had another snack instead of dinner.  I kept it simple but delicious: sweet cherries + crackers with a laughing cow wedge.

Yay, the workout definitely turned this day around!  Hopefully you enjoyed your New Year’s Day, whatever you did!

Oh, and I decided to take tomorrow off so I can extend this lovely weekend feeling.  I wanted to start the new year on the right foot, but since I did a little too much relaxing today, tomorrow I will try to be more productive (although relaxing is still very much on the agenda!)  That means definitely a blog post tomorrow since I’ll have plenty of time on my hands… and of course another (longer) workout!

BREAKFASTS

TJ’s nonfat yogurt, banana, Bear Naked Hundred Mile Medley trail mix (cashews, dark chocolate chips, cherries, almonds and granola), some pb puffins and shredded coconut.  This trail mix is just ok (the granola part is kind of dry and the nuts are not roasted)…

Omelet with light feta, grape tomatoes and avocado (made with 1 egg and 1 egg white) + 1/2 pita:

Similar yogurt to the above (I was planning on using a different trail mix and only realized I used the same one after polishing off this bowl )… nonfat yogurt, 1/2 banana, Bear Naked hundred mile medley and some homemade cranberry sauce + a massive cup of coffee.

LUNCHES

This was a genius creation: ww pita with bbq chicken, avocado, laughing cow wedge and grape tomatoes.  Seriously, amazing!

I was stuck at home (nasty weather) with a limited food supply, so I reheated some frozen lentil soup.  Yum!

DINNERS

Turkey burger with cranberry sauce alla Meghann.  Sounds funky but it was really really good (I actually wish I added even more cranberry sauce!).  I added some laughing cow cheese for creaminess and used a ww english muffin instead of a bun + some sweet potato fries.  Perfect Friday night dinner!

Ww pasta shells with ground lean turkey, diced tomatoes and garlic.  Pretty delicious

SNACKS

There were many snacks, but none of them mindless!  That’s how I like ‘em

Two ak-mac crackers with a packet of Barney Butter and 2 prunes.   I really love this combo (and the sesame seeds on the crackers)!

I was only going to have 1/2…

But the other half was calling my name so I ate it too Honestly though, this was not the best brownie I’ve had, shocking given my love for everything peanut butter and Baked brownies’ reputation.

Something from my stocking…

I was able to only eat 1/2 of this guy (as planned)… at first it seemed a bit bitter, but once the sweet chocolate chip taste kicked in, it was quite tasty

A sweet sloop (sailboat shaped almond butter crunch, a mainsail and a jib of white chocolate floating in rich dark chocolate with pecan spindrift washing her sides):

I’ve been craving cheesecake lately so I bought a box of frozen 100 calorie cheesecakes the other day.  Man, these are tiny!  I topped this baby with some cherry preserve.  It did take care of my cheesecake craving!

And there were a few glasses of vino… a glass of Shiraz at Great Bay (that place is awesome!):

And a Cotes du Rhone something rather at Eastern Standard (that place was hopping!!!):

I didn’t finish either one of those glasses, but it was fun to “bar/restaurant hop”

WORKOUTS

I totally slacked off on exercise in the last week.  In fact, I did not work out for a whole 7 days, and I wasn’t even sick!!!  Just lazy… not a good excuse.  So starting on Christmas day, with my new HRM toy that my husband bought me, I’ve kicked it up a notch and it’s been awesome.  I already posted my stats from Thursday.  On Friday I did 55 minutes circuit training + 35 minutes ET (=6 HBBC points) and last night I did 4.5 miles on the treadmill, 10 minutes on the bike + 12.5 minutes on the ET (it was so freaking boring I had to get off after getting to a round number)… yesterday’s workout also totaled 6 HBBC points.  So to-date I’ve accumulated 58.8… can I get to 100 by January 4th??  Probably not, but I’ll keep trying

So yeah, 3 days of NMSC so far.  I’ve been able to stay away from office cookies on Friday and didn’t order any food in my slightly tipsy state last night (I knew I didn’t really need it!).  Tomorrow there will be more challenges at the office because more people will be back and I’m sure many of them will want to bring their cookies to the office so they stop eating them themselves.  I think I’m finally at the right mindset though… 2009 here I come, stronger (and leaner ) than ever!!

Before we got our Christmas tree, I stopped by an art gallery store to check out their ornament selection.  There were so many unique and absolutely gorgeous ornaments that I just had to take pictures of them.  Unfortunately they were outrageously expensive so I didn’t get any.  Maybe if I win the lottery one day

Aren’t these amazing?!

And these are some giant ornaments in my office lobby.  There a bunch of them all over the Prudential Mall in Boston.  So cool!

And here is my husband cutting the protective plastic around our first Christmas tree ever  

And our tree all lit up.  It looks really pathetic in this picture, but actually it’s really cute and made the last few weeks very festive

Ok, onto food and fitness…

I woke up this morning ready to be super healthy.  I was so excited about it!  So today I’m happy to report was so so good.  I just love being healthy!  It makes me feel a billion times better than stuffing my face!!!

BREAKFAST

After opening some gifts from my husband (I got a brand new camera and an HRM – yay!!!!!!) while drinking coffee, I made one my lovely yogurt parfaits.  It’s been what seems like ages since I’ve had one.

In this beautiful bowl (picture still taken with the old camera – not bad) was about 3/4 cup of yogurt, 1/2 banana, some strawberries and blueberries and a serving of Bear Naked Continental Divide Blend trail mix (banana chips, chocolate chips, walnuts, almonds and chocolate granola).  Yum yum yum.

Here is the package of the trail mix.  I liked it a lot!

WORKOUT

After digesting my breakfast for a few hours, I head to the gym in our building.  It is so convenient having it right there… I really have no excuse of ever skipping workouts!  I used my new HRM, so I have some workout stats… I love knowing exactly how many calories I burn!  The HRM was about 25% below what the treadmill and elliptical showed!

I like having a plan before I go to the gym, so today I came with a printout of this 3s and 5s treadmill challenge.  I looked at Melissa’s speeds and thought they were at about my fitness level so I started following her numbers exactly but after the first set, realized I could kick it up a notch without jeopardizing my ability to finish the run so I increased everything by 0.3 mph, oh and I also ran all the recovery intervals at 6.3 mph.  This was so much fun… I’ll definitely do this again.  Hopefully I can increase my speed and add some inclines over time!

After 45 minutes on the treadmill (or exactly 5 miles), I jumped on the elliptical and did another 30 minutes there.  I think the elliptical is just so boring… it took a lot of convincing to stay on for the full 30, but I did it!  Here are my stats:

Duration: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Calories burnt: 701

Ave heart rate: 151 (I think that’s a bit low but this thing is new so I’m still figuring it out)

Max heart rate: 198 (whoa)

HBBC points today: 7

Total HBBC points: 46.8 

SNACKS

I wasn’t too hungry after my workout so I just had a snack before making lunch.  I’ve decided to give Meghann’s orange + pb combo a try. I gave it a little twist by using Peanut Butter and Co.’s Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter.  This is about 1/2 orange with 1/2T of pb:

It’s official, peanut butter goes with everything… including orange!!  The juicy orange was actually a nice contrast to the creaminess and heaviness of the peanut butter.  De.licious!

Another snack later in the afternoon… a Harry & David pear.  I grabbed one from a goodie basket at work yesterday, so it got a little bruised on its commute home.  It was still juicy and delicious.  Harry & David pears are definitely the best (honestly I wouldn’t be able to justify the price though)!

LUNCH

For lunch I planned on making a salad since my husband was eating the leftover calzone (I usually try to eat salads or other “funky” foods he wouldn’t be interested in when he’s on his own with food).  We had a pretty pathetic amount of mixed greens, though, so I brainstormed and came up with this “salad.”

This looks just like a pile of food, but here is what you really see:

• mixed greens dressed in 1 teaspoon of Annie’s organic goddess dressing
• 1/4 avocado
• grape tomatoes
• small handful of macadamia nuts
• 1/2 block of baked tofu (sprinkled in chili powder and salt, baked at 375* for 35 minutes)

This made me so full!  I think it was the fat from the avocado and the nuts.  This was about 300 calories but I was seriously stuffed for hours (almost in an uncomfortable kind of stuffed).

DINNER

My husband was craving buffalo chicken, so I suggested making little pita pizzas with buffalo chicken.  They came out super delicious!  Un-pocketing the ww pita makes for a great base for TWO individual pizzas… so efficient

Here is my plate with 2 large carrots on the side for some veg:

Close-up of the pizza:

Oh, I used Trader Joe’s pizza sauce (it’s really great!) and 2% Italian shredded cheese (1 oz worth).  I burnt it a little but it was still super yummy!  I will definitely remember this idea when I’m craving a greasy slice – this one was enjoyed 100% guilt free!

And after blogging, I’m going to make some tea and have this baby:

This guy was in my stocking this morning.  The snowman is so cute

All in all, I am so happy about getting back on track.  I just feel so happy!  I’m restarting my No Mindless Snacking Challenge (NMSC).  Today was Day 1 (of a second streak attempt).  I home to make to the end of December (and then I’ll start the January NMSC).

Merry Christmas to everyone again!  I hope you are having a wonderful day, whether you celebrate it or not (you probably still got the day off )

Ok so let’s get to this week’s recap (not on Wednesday because I was traveling)… Sorry in advance for a super long post!

I really REALLY fell off the wagon with the mindless eating challenge.  And when I fall, I really fall… it was bad.  I basically was stuffing my face Monday-Thursday (I got it out of my system now so Friday was good and I plan on being healthy going forward). I just couldn’t stop… I don’t know what happened.  So there is definitely some unphotographed food that was eaten on top of what’s here, mostly chocolate

BREAKFASTS

I made some cranberry sauce on Sunday morning using this recipe from Cooking Light.  I cut the sugar in half because I wanted to keep it pretty versatile (so I could use it on sweet and savory things).  I was ready to add more sugar if it didn’t taste sweet enough, but it was plenty sweet even with just 1/4 cup.  It came out great!  Here it is in a pot:

And here is the whole batch in tupperware ready for future use

So my Monday oats, of course, utilized this delicious goodness…

This bowl had 1/3 cup oats, 1/2 banana, some pecans, almonds, white chocolate chunks and the star ingredient, 1/4 cup of cranberry sauce.  The white chocolate chunks melted all over and were heavenly!  I wish I added more (ok, that would probably make this bowl a lot less healthy).

Tuesday breakfast: my usual banana/barney butter waffle sandwich…

On Wednesday I wanted to try the Bear Naked fruit and nut granola sample I recently received in the mail.  I combined it with about a cup of TJ’s nonfat European style yogurt and a juicy pear.  Yogurt ingredients: 

And all mixed in:

I liked this granola a lot!  It had whole almonds in it, which is a huge selling point for me… I just love nuts!  It was also a little sweet but not too sweet.  I’d definitely buy this again (although I’m still in the market to find the perfect granola so I will be trying other kinds before settling on this one)… maybe I should try making my own.  I hear it’s the best

Thursday morning breakfast was at my sister’s house in NY.  I loaded my yogurt bowl with lots of toppings.  I kind of went overboard a little

I know you can’t even see the yogurt under all that stuff… it was there though, about 1 cup of nonfat yogurt, 1/2 banana, a serving of TJ’s nutty american trek mix (my favorite!!! I was so happy she had some), a handful of frosted mini wheats and a healthy spoonful of crunchy Barney Butter.  The yogurt had kind of nasty consistency (sorry I’m spoiled with TJ’s yogurt and other greek yogurts) but all the topping more than made up for it

And to finish off breakfast I had a cupcake.  Yup, I had a cupcake for breakfast.  My sister made some and I couldn’t resist the chance to try one.  I was eating breakfast at about 10:30 (went to a yoga class in the morning) so this also counted as my mid-morning “snack.”  I wish I could have a cupcake for a snack everyday!!  Anyways, this was a carrot cake cupcake with cream cheese frosting.  Sorry it’s kind of overexposed… the frosting is practically glowing

This was the best carrot cake (cupcake) I’ve ever had!!!  Inna, I need the recipe asap.  Wait, no, I don’t want the recipe.  I don’t think I can be trusted with these things around the house.  A.mazing!!!

Here is another shot of the best carrot cake cupcake ever:

Today’s breakfast was a simple egg and cheese sandwich on a Food for Life english muffin.  It was super delicious.  I love home-made egg and cheese sandwiches and those english muffins are the bomb!  Yes, I said “the bomb” when referring to english muffins

All breakfasts were of course accompanied by cups of coffee sweetened with agave nectar.

LUNCHES

3 slices of turkey, 1 laughing cow wedge, 1/4 cup of home-made cranberry sauce on When Pigs Fly sourdough bread with some steamed broc.  I tossed most of the broccoli when I decided I just wasn’t in the mood for it.

Here is the sandwich up close.  Very delicious!

Tuesday lunch was not healthy (I kind of lost it Monday night so that’s when sh*t hit the fan).  I wanted something greasy even though I brought a healthy lunch so I went out for some pizza at Upper Crust.  This was their daily slice of tomato and basil pizza… I requested it on whole wheat dough and paper toweled away some of the oil.

This was honestly kind of disappointing.  I’ve had Upper Crust before and it was amazing, but their whole wheat crust apparently tastes like cardboard.  Good to know!  I still ate the whole thing though

Later in the day, I wanted to redeem my less than stellar pizza experience so I went to Pizzeria Regina and got a slice of their Sicilian tomato basil pizzas.  It has onions under a layer of cheese so naturally tasted pretty nasty to me  Not cool!!

Wednesday lunch was a bunch of leftovers: freekeh grains with roasted grapes in white wine/thyme sauce and some orange chicken (from Tuesday’s dinner to be discussed further).  The grapes and the chicken were both sweet so they worked well together and I still really like those freaky grains… hehe.

Thursday lunch was eaten at a meeting, so there is no picture.  I had a tiny sandwich with ham and cheese and two 1-bite brownies (this was the day I ate the cupcake after breakfast so I wasn’t very hungry).

Last lunch in this recap (ok this was today and I had to find the picture to remember what I ate… scary!):

This is a crab cake from Legal Sea Foods (we received a gift basket from my husband’s work so I baked them last night) with a simple mixed greens/tomato/cucumber/carrot salad dressed with 1T of Annie’s goddess dressing.  This was super delicious!!!

For lunch dessert I had some chocolate covered toffee:

This stuff was crunchey!  A cross-section pic just to get you salivating a bit

DINNERS

On Monday I made some beef chili in our crockpot.  I just love crockpot soups because they are ready when I get home.  This was a winner!!!  We had my parents over our house and polished the whole thing off, without blinking.  I used this recipe from Bread & Honey as the base (no onions, oil or corn used) and added a little over a pound of 96% lean ground beef.  I browned the beef on a skillet with some EVOO Pam and then just dumped everything into the crockpot and set it to 6 hours (it switches to warming mode after cooking).  Oh btw, I originally only used 1 cup of chicken broth but it was waaay too thick, not soup like at all.  I added another 1/2 cup later and it was perfectly thick but more chili like.  I’d do the same next time (and there will be a next time!).  Here is my bowl (a little less than 1/4 of the whole thing) topped with shredded 2% Cabot cheddar cheese (awesome cheese btw!) and a dollop of nonfat yogurt.  So good!!

And since we had guests over I had to make dessert.  I baked some Trader Joe’s chocolate chip dough cookies.  Unfortunately my parents were trying to behave themselves and didn’t eat nearly as much as I thought they would, so I ended up polishing them off (2.5 in total).  The whole tray…

And my first cookie:

Tuesday night since I already blew my diet I was craving Chinese food (my co-worker had it for lunch and that definitely triggered the craving).  We went out to Golden Temple in Brookline and I started with the Peach Tea cocktail.  Here I am… this is an action shot

This thing was SO sweet!  I don’t think I drank half of it.  It was pretty strong though, so I was still feeling it a little

My husband ordered some chicken wings for an appetizer.  Here is the whole dish (I think I had four of those babies)… they were the perfect balance of sweet and spicy – this was definitely the highlight of the meal!

I eat Chinese food very (!) rarely so when I do, I usually go for the orange chicken.  It’s typically fried and super unhealthy but since it’s usually a treat of sorts when I have it, I go for the real thing.  So this time was no different, I was craving it and that’s what I ordered.  Here is the dish:

Unfortunately this was kind of healthified.  Normally this would be a good thing, but I wanted the good old orange chicken I used to have back in the day without thinking twice about how bad it was for me.  This actually tasted like orange (instead of just super sweet flavor that only slightly resembles orange).  I was disappointed

My husband ordered Szechuan Pork, which we shared… and also some steamed brown rice.  Again, this is the entire dish:

I was kind of grabbing everything in random amounts from both plates so I don’t know how much I actually had… maybe 1/3 of each dish?  The pork was yummy but I was definitely upset about my un-fried chicken.  Golden Temple is actually proud of the healthy ingredients they use (although they certainly serve fried versions of foods) so that’s probably a good thing for a time when I don’t want to be unkind to my waistline.  The atmosphere is also very nice… definitely temple like.  I snapped a photo, but I don’t think it does it justice.

We’ll definitely be back!  I’ll just ask more questions next time to make sure I’m getting exactly what I’m looking for, whether I’m going for the healthy or the unhealthy option.

Oh, and of course I had a fortune cookie for dessert.  It has a stupid message.  I don’t remember what it was… you’re not missing any words of wisdom here

Wednesday night dinner was in NY.  My sister wanted us to go out to Pala for wine and pizza.  I had two disappointing slices the day before so I decided to have pizza again to hopefully redeem myself.  Pala is awesome!!

I started with a glass of a Tuscan sangiovese.  It came in a stemless glass – so modern!

Do you see the little rosemary bush on a plate?  So cool!!  You can use it for your pizza too.  They actually bake rosemary straight into the dough.  Yum!

While waiting for our pizza, I snapped a photo of their pizza counter.  Again this picture totally does not do the decor justice – it was modern, classy and cool.

We got some pizza dough bites to snack on.  I had just 2 or 3 before we got the pizza since I didn’t want to spoil my appetite, but after dinner I really dug into this bowl.  I’m so bad sometimes!  These were really really yummy, though, so at least I was mindlessly munching on delicious food

And here is the star of the dinner: romana pizza with sweet pecorino cheese, field mushrooms, tomato sauce and fresh parsley.  It was so unique – they use the highest quality ingredients.  You taste that in every bite.  I loved it! I ate 1/2 of this…

Thursday dinner was on the train back to Boston.  I grabbed a sandwich at Pret a Manger for the ride – train food is gross!  This was a balsamic chicken/avocado sandwich.  Very delicious!  I wish there was more chicken in it – it was perfectly marinated!

+ Dessert…

Tonight’s dinner couldn’t be simpler (I’m back to more “normal” eating): TJ’s mushroom/provolone ravioli with some peas.  No sauce required.  This was pretty yummy but it had onions, so I won’t be buying these again.  I hate when I forget to check the label!!

LOTS AND LOTS OF SNACKS

This is going to be a lot of pictures!  There was a lot (!) of mindless (and mindful) snacking.  I took pictures of most things but as mentioned before there were a few treats that snuck into my mouth because I felt like being gross.  I can recall a Dunkin Donuts Boston Creme donut and an apple.  I know there were others too… I just can’t remember right now.  So yeah, here goes…

Random work trail mix:

The most amazing fudgy cookie:

Here is another shot of it.  I wish I got my hands on more of them!!!

A lot of grapes (I ate a lot more than this handful):

A pistachio/apricot blondie.  My friend Katie made them using this Martha Steward recipe, replacing dried apricots for dried pears, I can’t believe it’s not butter instead of real butter and I think whole wheat flour instead of white.  They turned out so good!  I think I’ll be making them in the near future.  Seriously delicious!!

I think this is called toffee bark (?)  I don’t know… it was super crunchy.  I went back for seconds, and thirds, and maybe fourths of this.  My memory is blurry at this point.  I had a lot of this.  It was amazing.

Au Bon Pain‘s creme de fleur:

Inside:

Legal Sea Food’s boston cream pie:

Edible Arrangements fruit sticks:

(Every bite of this was savored… I’ve been dying to try these forever).  This Baked brownie was delicious, although I would say Flour Bakery’s is still the best brownie I’ve ever had!  Here is a side shot (excuse my nasty chipped nails)

WORKOUTS

Monday: 45 minute weight training + 15 minutes elliptical = 4 HBBC points

Wednesday: 15 minutes abs + 45 minutes weight training = 3.5 HBBC points

Thursday: 90 minutes yoga = 3 HBBC points

I know, so much eating and hardly any exercise.  I’l be better… I promise!  Total for the challenge: 38.55

And that ends this super long recap.  Sorry it was so long… hopefully I got your drooling at least one time  I promise to keep these shorter in the future.  I just had a lot of catching up to do.  Hope you’re having a great day!  We have a crazy snow storm in Boston which means we’re staying in and watching a movie (there may be wine involved).

See you tomorrow with a post!

BREAKFAST

I wanted to keep it light (but not too light) this morning.  Seriously every time I’ve been to a yoga class in the morning, I’ve been either starving or way too full.  It could be because when the practice gets tough, your mind starts wandering… and food is typically what my mind wanders to  I think today I finally got it right!

I went with cereal this morning.  I don’t remember the last time I had cereal with milk (I typically use it as a topping over my yogurt as you know) but today I dug into every box in the house and had a big yummy cereal medley.

This bowl contained 1 cup of skim milk, 1/3 serving of Barbara’s peanut butter puffins, 1/3 serving of corn chex cereal, 1/3 serving of Kashi Golean cereal, a handful of Erin Baker’s double chocolate granola and 1 medium banana.  Very delicious, although the puffins got a little soggy and I really like how crunchy they are over yogurt.  No worries, though, I still really enjoyed this bowl and it was fun to have cereal with milk for a change.  I thought I wasn’t full enough after finishing this, but about an hour later realized that I’m perfectly happy.  I guess my mind had to catch up with my belly

WORKOUT

Since it’s been forever since my last hot yoga class, so today I decided to go to the beginners class.  It’s plenty hard, the room is still a billion degrees (which makes just about any move difficult) and yoga is all about you and your comfort level anyway so I knew I’d still get a great workout.  Well today I swear she took it a little easier on us.  I’m wondering if it’s because of the holidays there were more beginners there than usual (I’ve taken the beginners class before and many yoga veterans attended it) but it was still tough sometimes and was really REALLY good mentally.  I love how the instructor reminds you that yoga is not just a physical but a mental practice.  It just feels so good to concentrate on yourself for 90 minutes in a different way.  I really loved the class today!!!  I know I won’t wait months until my next practice.  Actually I’m considering getting some dvds for the home.  I’ve been stressing about silly things and maybe yoga will help me with some perspective on things.  Plus it’s a great way to improve flexibility and stretch those tired muscles, right?

I also decided to walk home from the class (instead of taking the train), which kind of prolonged the whole “me/thinking-time.”  The wind in my face felt refreshing…

So that’s 3 HBBC points for 90 minutes of yoga and 1.4 points (it was 1.4 mile walk) for the walk home.

LUNCH

I stopped by a grocery store to pick up a few quick things for lunch (just bread and cheese actually) and made a yummy simple meal.  I bought some whole wheat pitas, found 1 WF garlic parmesan chicken sausage in the fridge, and 1 sweet potato hanging out on the shelf.  I sliced up the sweet potato really thin, sprayed it with EVOO Pam, seasoned the slices with some S&P, popped them in the oven at 450* and jumped in the shower.  By the time I was out, the sweet potato chips were ready (actually there were 2.5 burnt pieces, damn).  They were soooooo good!  I shared 1/2 with my husband  He called them “cravable.”  Good word.

I also grilled the chicken sausage of the George Forman grill, sliced up some pickles and put it all together for a well rounded meal:

And for dessert, 1/2 serving of TJ’s dark chocolate edamame:

SNACKS

After a bit of prettifying and meal planning for the week, I decided to go out and run some errands.  I walked everywhere to get a few extra HBBC points since I was a lazy bum yesterday

On my way to the shops I ate the Almond, Walnut & Macadamia KIND bar.

Let me begin by saying that I have a tiny obsession with KIND bars.  I have a huge box with lots of yummy bars (larabars, zbars, etc.) and I really get most excited about the KIND bars.  That’s why I grabbed this baby today.  Well this guy was hard as a rock!  Seriously I was glad I ate it when no one was looking because I looked pretty silly fighting this thing.  There were a few times I bit on this thing with all my force and it didn’t give in.  The only reason I finished it was because that was my only dining option (except for you know, blowing my diet and hitting a bakery for a cookie or something – oh yeah, I thought about it!).  I’m not sure if this was just a one-off thing or if that’s because it was 100% nuts (no dried fruit to soften it).  Has anyone else tried this flavor?

I realized I was quite hungry while shopping and again considered going for a brownie or something, but I decided to start with a large tea and re-evaluate the situation in an hour.  I stopped by Tealuxe and got a Pear White Tea.  I love Tealuxe!!

Running errands actually proved to be very stressful (can’t give you more details at this point because it involved xmas shopping for a few of my readers ) so when I left “the store” I had knots in my stomach and definitely did not want to eat.  Fine by me.

Next stop: Trader Joe’s.  I bought a bunch of goodies, including some organic gala apples and had one of them on my way to the nail salon.  It was really delicious!  I think gala apples are my new fruit obsession (well I still can’t live without bananas but gala apples are my new favorite snack for sure!).

Walking to and from the stores was about 3.2 miles, so today’s HBBC point total is 7.6 (I love how walking really adds up!) and the running total so far is 28.05.  Ooh, I just realized I’m actually on track with my personal goal of average of 4 points/day.  Yay! 

DINNER

I got home pretty late and was pretty hungry.  My husband already had dinner by that time so I knew I had to take advantage of cooking for just me and made a delicious salad (he doesn’t like salads so I sneak them into my diet when I can).  My salad today was inspired by the Ginger Jeweled Salad from 101 cookbooks.  I was hungry so I didn’t make the ginger dressing but I did have most of the dried fruits and nuts Heidi had in her recipe so my salad was still pretty similar (and she definitely deserves the credit for it).  It was so good – really a perfect mix of sweet and savory!

So in my salad I used a new interesting grain I found at Trader Joe’s today, called Greenwheat Freekeh.  Yes, it’s practically called the freaky grain but I was intrigued  Here is the package:

The package said it is a super substitute for rice, couscous or pasta, and it’s higher in protein.  Since I was making a vegetarian salad, a higher protein content in the grain sounded like a good idea.  The verdict?  It was not freaky at all – it tasted like wheat berries.  I liked that it was already cooked so I just threw 1/2 package on the salad and it added some nice chew and texture.  Other salad ingredients included: dried cranberries (sweetened), hazelnuts, dried mission figs and light feta cheese.  Here is the salad goodness:

And I have to give you the close-up.  Doesn’t it look amazing?!  I love hazelnuts… and figs!!!

I dressed the salad with the most amazing strawberry balsamic vinegar my sister brought us from her most recent trip to Chicago.  OMG, I could drink this stuff with a straw!  So good!!  Thanks, Innz!!!

And I finished the meal with dessert of course!  I saw this somewhere in the blog world world last night, and put it immediately on my grocery list…

After my amazing hot chocolate experience at Jacques Torres Chocolate in NYC, I was really looking forward to giving this baby a try.  I made a tiny espresso cup’s worth with 1/3 cup of skim milk and 3 tablespoons of the chocolate powder.  It was very sweet, thick and indulgent.  It definitely took care of my chocolate craving.  I think this may become a new nightly ritual

I’m off to make some cranberry sauce and watch Californication.

Total calorie count for today: 1530

Oh yeah, today was Day 5 of NMSC !!!  I’m doing awesome!

BREAKFASTS

My work was having a pancake breakfast party at 9:30 am, but there is no way I could wait until then to eat.  So I started the morning with 1/2 bagel with some cream cheese and a “work coffee.”  It was hard not to go back for the second half but I knew I needed to save room for the official breakfast.

And for the pancake breakfast of course I had to have some pancakes  I got 1 banana and 1 chocolate chips, plus a bunch of fruit.  They went all out for this… there was sausage and bacon, mini muffins and all sorts of other goodies.  I tried to behave somewhat and had “only” this plate (still a million calories right there, I’m sure) and instead of having seconds of the pancakes topped with butter, maple syrup and whipped cream I just had another handful of the grapes (not pictured).

Free food like that is hard to resist, and seriously when everyone else was going back for more I had to really fight the urge to do the same.  I knew this was plenty of food though (especially since I already had 1/2 bagel beforehand) so I kept my NMSC in mind and didn’t eat more just because I could.  Honestly, even this plate of food was sitting like a rock in my stomach for a few hours.  No sweat, I felt much better after an awesome workout

WORKOUT

I took a 15 minute abs class at the gym followed by a 45 minute boot camp class.  While waiting for the instructor to start the classes I did a few quick jump rope intervals.  For a little extra something I also did 15 minutes on the elliptical.  The gym was still super hot… do you burn more calories when you work out in the heat?  Not sure about this, but all I know is that I was a sweaty mess once again, which at least made me feel like I had an extra hard workout!

Total HBBC points for the day: 4.5, running total: 20.45

LUNCH

Lunch was a bunch of leftovers, cleverly (if I say so myself) combined to create a perfect low calorie meal.  In the morning I chopped up some leftover cured ham that I bought for the quiche from a few days ago, I also had some chopped up broccoli from the same quiche dinner.  Those came in a little baggie to work with me.  At work I had some leftover Pacific Natural Foods cashew carrot ginger soup (1 cup’s worth) and a carrot (which I also chopped up before steaming in the microwave).  Veggies were microwaved with a tiny bit of water for a minute, then ham and soup were added and microwaved for another minute and a half, and voila… yummy lunch

The Pacific Natural Foods cashew carrot ginger soup was pretty intense on its own, but with all these veggies and meat it was absolutely perfect.  I haven’t found a Pacific Natural Foods’ soup that I didn’t like!  Their stuff is really great!!

And for dessert I had the tiny brownie I snagged from a meeting the day before.  I was so proud of myself for not eating it right away!  It waited for the perfect moment and I really REALLY enjoyed it.  I know in my previous post I said that a seven layer bar may be giving brownies a run for their money, but after eating this baby I may be taking it back  This was just so good!  Ok, maybe there is a place in my heart for both of these treats

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK

Around 4:30 I was hungry again… I think my metabolism is crazy these days (I’m surprisingly not gaining weight).  I had the rest of my bagel with 1/2 of Barney Butter packet, some strawberry jelly and 1/2 banana.  Yum!!!!

DINNER

The snack above once again really stuck to my ribs… it almost sabotaged our dinner plans.  Not good!  Thankfully right before we were about to cancel our reservation (which my husband was not happy about), my stomach started growling and let me know it was ready for another meal again.  We were both happy!  Who wants to sit at home on a Friday night?  Not me!

Our dinner reservations were at Gaslight.  My husband had a rough work week and was really looking forward to going out for a nice meal and a few delicious drinks  Gaslight received great reviews across the board and we had high expectations for the place.  I’m happy to report we were not disappointed!  We got there a little after 7:30 and the place was packed!  We waited for a few minutes until being seated.  Our table was honestly in the worst location (my husband was sitting literally in the aisle) but we quickly forgot about it.  We started with a few cocktails… mine was Gaslight’s signature drink called Fleur De Lis made with Parfait Amour Violet Liqueur, gin, Mathilde Peach, white grape juice and a champagne float.  Here I am with my first beverage…  This thing was strong!!

For an appetizer my husband ordered the french onion soup (eww!!!!) and I went with the shaved beet root salade with with toasted walnuts, watercress, red onion, dijon, and creme fraiche (no onions for me of course).

This was quite yummy.  I love mustard but I’ve never had it with beets, a very unique combo in my opinion.  The walnut pieces were like a special treat… I definitely dug them all out right away  I only tasted the creme fraiche but this was so flavorful it really didn’t need it.

Oh when we got the food the waitress also brought a bag with a baguette fresh out of the oven.  I loved the presentation – made me feel like I was back in Paris

I had a hunk of it (no butter for this girl):

I was really in a fish mood, so I went with the Sautéed skate with haricots verts and caper beurre noisette.  Here is when a menu in French, as fancy as that is, was inconvenient.  For some reason I was expecting a grilled piece of fish (ok, I guess it said sauteed but it tasted kind of fried) with root vegetables and capers.  As you can see below I got some potatoes and green beans… and there were no capers in sight.  There was, however, plenty of butter!  So.much.butter!  It tasted delicious but I thought I was getting something a lot fresher (and healthier).  Oh well.  I tried to not dip in the butter sauce but I did end up eating everything on the plate (except for 2 bites of the fish I gave to my husband).  I guess I liked it

We also got 1/2 carafe of wine.  Here are all of my beverages.. martini, wine and water.  My husband helped me out with the alcoholic ones.  I’ve become a very slow drinker (which I’m definitely happy about!).

And of course I had to have dessert!  I wanted to order the molten chocolate cake, but the waitress was very excited about the Chocolate beignets with Creme Anglais.  I decided to go with something different, especially since she mentioned there was chocolate ganache inside those babies.  Ok, it didn’t take much convincing on her part

These things were basically cocoa colored fried dough balls with chocolate ganache inside… and the creme anglais tasted like melted down vanilla ice cream.  I am not a big fan of fried food so these were pretty yummy but not my style.  I appreciated the idea of them, though.  I had 2 out of 5 (my husband happily had the rest – he loves fried food!).

All in all, this was a lot of fun and we’ll definitely be back!  Great place!

After dinner we headed to a bar at Rocca next door.  I’ll feature my drink in a separate post!  What a fun night!!!!

Oh, I am proud to say there was no mindless snacking at all.  I passed up on trail mix popcorn hanging around the office (and of course second/third helpings of the pancakes and other munchies)… and despite being a little tipsy when I got home, I did not hit up the container with chocolate covered edamame.  This is day 3 of my NMSC streak

BREAKFAST

I skipped another day of yogurt parfaits and had oats instead, but I still couldn’t stay away from my favorite trail mix.  Here is today’s bowl:

In this lovely bowl is 1/3 c of rolled oats made with 1/3 cup of skim milk, 1/3 cup of water and 1/2 banana (cut thinly).  I microwaved it for about 3 minutes on high and topped with my fave! And of course I had a cup of “work coffee”: coffee with a pod of half&half and a teaspoon of agave nectar.

PRE-WORKOUT SNACK

Simple- Ellie Krieger’s energy bar.  Yum!

This is when my little “No Mindless Snacking Challenge” (NMSC) helped out.  They had a meeting at my work this morning and had a bunch of leftover sweets.  This stuff is my absolute favorite – I really really love it and hardly ever can resist it.  I grabbed 2 little cookie bars on my way to the gym, but instead of eating them right away and skipping my workout because I was too full, I put them in my desk drawer, and hit the treadmill hard to burn some calories.  Much better!

WORKOUT

I never completed my planned 3 mile run yesterday so I had to make it up today.  Unfortunately, the gym was like a sauna again today.  What is going on?!!  I remembered what’s waiting for me back in the office and decided to push through… and I did it!  I ran 3 miles at a “random” setting at level 2 (incline was randomly switching from 0 to 2.0, I think) at 6.6-7.5 mph.  I was dripping sweat like crazy.  Seriously it was SO HOT!  I never run outside (well, I ran 3 times outside in the last few years of running) so I’m not used to weird temperatures.  In fact there are 2 reasons why I’m scared of running outside: hills and crazy temps.  Today I conquered both  I also walked for 0.25 miles and then jumped on the elliptical for 30 minutes.  So that’s 5.25 HBBC points, if I’m not mistaken… 15.95 total so far.

LUNCH

Lunch was leftover crustless ham, veggie & cheese ham from last night, this time 1/4 portion.  I was planning on also having a pear with it, but instead enjoyed my little office treat

This must be a good week, because I’ve had two seven layer bars two days in a row (from two different sources).  The first time I tried this bar (from this exact bakery last year) I fell in love with seven layer bars.  I always go for brownies when presented with different choices but seriously this guy is making me rethink that.  It was absolutely amazing and I slowly enjoyed it with a nice cup of tea.

Not sure if you noticed above, but I mentioned I grabbed two little cookie bars before going to the gym.  Yes, I also grabbed another 2-bite brownie and I did not eat it!  It is still in my desk drawer all wrapped up waiting for its fate tomorrow.  This was a huge step for me, but I knew that eating both would make me sick and that would kind of qualify for mindless snacking/eating and you know I wanted to call today “day 2″ of the NMSC! So far this challenge is working!!

DINNER

My lunch kept me full for many hours.  There was no need for an afternoon snack.  I did go out for a quick drink with some co-workers after work and had a glass of Californian Cabernet Sauvignon (not pictured).

I wasn’t sure how late I was going to stay at the bar tonight so I didn’t plan anything for dinner.  No worries, though, because I was craving a salad with the yummy hummus I made last night.  Here is my plate:

It was kind of mediterranean inspired, since hummus was the main star.  My salad had 2 cups of spinach dressed in 1 tablespoon of Annie’s goddess dressing (it has tahini as one of the ingredients so it paired perfectly with the hummus), 3.5 oz of grilled chicken, 2 tablespoons of homemade hummus, some grape tomatoes and 1/2 oz of light feta cheese.  Simple and delicious.

And for “dessert” I had a nice big pear:

And a few hours later, I had real dessert – 1/2 serving of TJ’s chocolate covered edamame.  Who was I kidding with that pear for dessert?!  This girl needs chocolate!

Total calories for the day: 1644

Yay for healthy living!  Tomorrow is Friday… can’t wait!

So I was tossing and turning last night when I was trying to fall asleep.  I just couldn’t figure out how to prevent “these types of days” from happening.  After a while I fell asleep and this morning I was ready to have a better day, but I was still upset about my silly snacking preventing me from reaching my weight loss goals.  Well, on my way to work (I walked there for the first time in a while and it was really nice to just have “me time” with no distractions), I got it!  I figured it out!!!  I do really well with streaking challenges, but the ones I’ve done in the past despite being very “effective,” were kind of restrictive so I ended up bingeing at some point and erasing all of my hard work.  So this time, I am starting a new streaking challenge that is exactly what I need: “No Mindless Snacking” Streaking Challenge.  The rules are simple, I began this today and successfully avoided all mindless eating.  So today counts as Day 1.  I’ll keep the countdown going – if I break it I have to start at day 1.  These types of mind games usually work for me… it’s just taking one extra step of thinking twice about what I’m about to do (or not do) and brings out the competitive side of me  It also means that as long as I am aware of what I’m doing, I get to have little indulges.  Today this challenge came in handy twice (I avoided unnecessary temptation for no reason and enjoyed a nice little treat without feeling guility about it!).  Perfect!

I’ll start fresh every month as to not have too much pressure on myself.  Sounds good?  Anyone wants to join me?  There are no prizes here, but your body may thank you for it!

Now let’s get on with food and fitness…

BREAKFAST

I absolutely love yogurt combos, but I may have been overdoing on them lately and I don’t want to bore you guys to death with the same old food.  So, I made another classic: 2 toasted waffles with 1/2 banana and 1T of nut butter.  I typically use a Barney Butter packet for this delicious breakfast “sandwich” but since I was home this morning, I figured I shouldn’t waste a portable packet and measured out a tablespoon ofpeanut butter instead.   Well it’s official bloggies, I am addicted to Barney Butter!!!  When I first tried it, I thought it was just ok, but liked how portable the little packets were so I stocked up.  I’ve been eating them for months (and enjoying them very much) but I never realized just how attached I got to this lovely goodness.  The peanut butter just wasn’t as good today.  I totally missed my BB!!!  I guess that means I need to order up some jars

Midway through eating, I added some cherry preserve to it to add a little more sweetness.  That made it more delicious!  And I also had a very large mug of chocolate coffee with skim milk and agave nectar.  Yum!

WORKOUT

I was itching to burn some calories since I never made it to the gym last night.  I am so used to working out that after an unplanned day off, I cannot wait to get back to it!  I’m so glad that I really love exercising!!!  At the gym, I took an abs class, a Group Power class (some serious lifting to the beat of the music!) + ran 1.5 miles (and a cool down 0.1 mile walk).  I was actually planning on running for 3 miles but the gym was ridiculously hot (it was 60* out today and I think they were heating it like it was in the teens).  I was dripping sweat and thought I was going to pass out so I stopped half-way.  I hate when random things like that happen!  Anyways, I still got a few points towards HBBC!  So let’s see how I did today…

- walk to work = 1.3 miles = 1.3 points

- 15 minutes abs = 0.5 points

- 30 minutes lifting = 2 points

- 1.6 miles run + walk = 1.6 points 

Total for today: 5.4, Running total: 10.7

LUNCH

I am seriously not hungry today.  I had my breakfast a little before 8am and finally made lunch at 3pm.  I wasn’t even very hungry then, but figured it was time to eat.  I guess I was using my stored energy…

For lunch I used some leftovers: last Arnold’s sandwich thin with 1/2 can of sardines and a laughing cow wedge + a spinach/grape tomato/cucumber salad with 1T Annie’s goddess dressing.  It

was quite nice.

And the best part… dessert!  My co-worker brought some 7-layer bars that his girlfriend, Katie (also my new friend and blog reader) made for his birthday last night.  She warned me they were coming so I saved some room for them today.  I absolutely love 7-layer bars – how can you not, it has all the best goodies all in one bar!  Here is the little guy.  It was super sweet and intense so I left a few tiny bites, just to be good.  I enjoyed this a lot!!!!

DINNER

Again, no snacking in between meals today.  I made dinner because my husband was hungry but I could have just gone without.  I made the Crustless Ham, Veggie & Cheese Quiche using this recipe from Anna of Cookie Madness.  Anna very rarely posts recipes that are not dessert, so I knew this was going to be a good one!  My husband was so excited about it, he was practically giddy

I doubled Anna’s recipe because it was very low calorie (and I already had a serving size mishap this week!) + I wanted leftovers.  I used a little bit more ham  than Anna (around 5oz for the doubled recipe) and of course I didn’t add onions, but otherwise I didn’t get creative here and just followed the recipe.  Here are a few pics of the process…

All the veggies and ham layered in the pan:

Egg & cheese mixture:

Combine the 2:

Add the other half of cheese after baking for about 35-38 minutes…

And here it is all ready

And my portion (only 1/6 of the recipe because I really wasn’t hungry):

I thought this was pretty good, but my husband looooved it!!!!  He ate 1/4 of the pan, then went back for more!  I would add more ham between the potato and veggie layer because I felt like the ham was just a little bit on the top and it was the best part.  I think next time I’ll also add some tomatoes and/or mushrooms.  My husband will definitely be requesting this again, so we’ll see if I can get a little more adventurous next time and add my own spin to it

RANDOM “COOKING”

I had a little bit of time on my hands tonight so I made some hummus.  I used this very simple (and healthy) recipe (*notice there is no olive oil involved here*).  It came out absolutely perfect and even my husband (who would never think about eating hummus) tried it and then got a few more crackers to sample the goods.  I only had a few licks of the spoon to make sure it tasted ok.  It was really really good and took about 5 minutes to make and made a huge batch.  I really prefer this to store-bought hummus and it’s so much cheaper!  Here is the whole batch (I sprinkles it with some more paprika just to make it pretty )

And that’s that for today!  I’m off to relax a little before bed time.  See you tomorrow!

Oh, total calories for the day: 1073 (I know it’s super low but I seriously cannot eat today; I’m sure tomorrow I’ll be back to normal )

*Edited to add* I just had a gala apple.  Yum! ]]> http://blog.healthyandsane.com/2008/12/i-figured-it-out/feed/ 11