BREAKFAST

We were out of eggs and bananas, so I had to get creative.  Here is a little combo I threw together.  It was fun to eat a bunch of different things!

That’s part skim ricotta with dried figs, 1/2 Food for Life english muffin with fruit spread and chunky peanut butter and a large mug of coffee.  Yum!

I <3 ricotta!!!

LUNCH

We were going to the mall to buy some last minute xmas gifts so I made a sammy to go (so glad I did because the mall was crazy busy and the food selections were definitely limited).

3 oz of turkey, 1 oz of Land ‘o Lakes white american cheese, pickles, dijon mustard on a ww pita.  I took the picture on a plate but then put it in a baggie for the ride to the mall.  It looks messy here but was actually very easy to eat on the go.

SNACKS

I took a little fun treat with me to the mall, knowing my sweet tooth will inevitably kick in.  I picked this baby up at Pret when I was in NY on Thursday.

Portion control is key with such a lovely treat, so I immediately cut it in half and only took 1/2 with me in a little snack baggie.  Thank god, because there is no way I could stop myself from eating the whole thing… this was AMAZING!!!  I am in love with the love bar

We were shopping until 8pm, so I had to buy an emergency bar to keep myself from chewing my arm off.  I saw this Kashi Go Lean Crunchy Chocolate Peanut bar in the grocery store.  I’ve been wanting to try it for a while (after reading some positive reviews of it in the blog world) so this was my chance.

Here it is on the inside:

I really liked it!  It was definitely on the hard side but the flavors were great!  I was also not hungry for a while after eating this. In fact I made dinner just because it was getting really late and we wanted to watch a movie.  I’d buy this bar again!

DINNER

Dinner was on the small side because I ate the above mentioned Kashi bar only an hour before maybe.  I made a fun salad with mixed greens, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, last of the homemade hummus (gotta make more!) and a falafel patty.  I used just some lemon juice for a dressing but next time I’d add some goddess dressing to this.  It would take the salad to the next level, for sure.  

And while watching The Dark Knight (which was awesome!) I roasted some chestnuts.  Here is my first plate of four… yeah I went back for another 4 or 5, one at a time.  They were soo sweet and delicious.  I love roasted chestnuts!

Oh and I had a 5oz glass of some Temporillo.  I wanted more but I’m trying to get back to healthier eating so I stopped at just one glass

Total calories for the day: 1692 (the extra chestnuts put me over the edge, but it’s ok, it’s still way better than I’ve been eating all week).

No exercise either – shopping took forever!

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

We were totally out of fruit (*gasp*) and I’m trying to use up the sandwich thins I bought last week before they go bad, so that was the inspiration for today’s breakfast.  It was simple really: egg, bacon and cheese on a sandwich thin + some Dunkin Donuts hazelnut coffee with skim milk and agave.  It was lower on calories compared to my usual breakfasts, but sitting on the coach all day doesn’t burn very many calories so I didn’t get hungry again for a while

Close up pic:

LUNCH

I planned today’s lunch in my head yesterday, so when my husband and I were preparing the pizza, I kept a little bit of chicken to star in today’s salad.  I used iceberg lettuce as the base, added grape tomatoes, cucumber, buffalo chicken and some toasted sliced almonds.  No dressing necessary… the buffalo sauce added plenty of flavor!  The sliced almonds were the best part though – they complemented all the other ingredients really well.  I’m glad I threw them in the salad at the last minute

And after doing a quick calorie calculation in my head, I realized this was super low-cal, so I made a little dessert… a leftover chocolate banana pancake with a small spoonful of peanut butter.  I warmed up the pancake and the peanut butter melted all over it.  OMG – so good!

WORKOUT

I did another routine from Jillian’s “Winning by Losing.”  I used the gym in our apartment building so it didn’t have all the cable machines her routine suggested so I substituted a few moves, but I still worked on my chest, hamstrings, biceps and abs.  I warmed and cooled down on the ET for 5 minutes each.  Total workout time = 60 minutes.

DINNER

My husband and I promised my parents we would go see them today so dinner was kind of on the go.  I didn’t want to eat at their place, because they only cook unhealthy things and the other option was take-out, so we stopped by UFood on the way there and I had their amazing chipotle chicken sandwich (tender chicken breast with melted jalapeno jack, spicy chipotle mayo, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and sweet red onion on toasted ciabatta bread).  I ordered it sans onions and seriously, I was kind of speechless for a while after saying how good it was like 10 times!  My belly was very happy!!  I love UFood!!!  Healthy fast food – brilliant! 

I ate the whole thing and practically licked the plate clean

SNACKS

Once we got to my parents house, I munched on some strawberries.  They were so sweet and juicy, and despite being full from dinner I couldn’t stop myself from digging in.  We took the rest home, so here is a little re-enactment picture:

I also had a tiny piece of this almond bar my dad just brought from Barcelona… it’s basically almonds, honey and sesame seeds.  Very delicious and definitely calorie dense so I just had a taste because my dad was really excited about it, and I actually had plenty of calories to spare.

Daily calorie total: 1205

We’re back home.  I’m off to prepare some food for tomorrow and hopefully plan out the rest of the week’s eats.  We’ll see how ambitious I feel… it’s getting late.

BREAKFAST

I had plans to hit the gym in a little while, but my stomach started growling a bit so I knew I had to feed it   I made a yogurt bowl with lots of yummy toppings:1/2 banana, some pb puffins, Erin Baker’s double chocolate granola and a bit of TJ’s smooth peanut butter.  This combo always hits the spot!

BAKING

For Thanksgiving dinner, I decided to make the white chocolate cranberry bars I made last week.  My husband really liked them and I thought it was a fall kind of dessert (with cranberries and all) so I got to baking.  This time I took some pics of the process for you   Here is the recipe I followed.  Once again I used the smart balance butter, dried cranberries and (as you will see later) omitted the brown sugar.  Here are a few pics of the step-by-step process:

Combine the dry ingredients:

Butter and sugar creaming in the Kitchen Aid:

Add the dry into the butter:

Mix the cranberries and white chocolate chips (or chunks in my case) into the dough:

Transfer into a pan (I used an 8×8 pan because I don’t have the 11×7 as suggested):

Bake for about 30 minutes…

After putting this in the oven and starting to clean the counter top I noticed the bag of brown sugar and started panicking a little.  Yep, I forgot the brown sugar!!!!  After forgetting to add the sugar while making the pumpkin muffins last weekend, I was extra careful to follow the recipe since this time I was bringing it for other people.  Apparently, not careful enough.  I was so upset!  My husband wrote it off. He told me to throw it away immediately and start over again.  I thought these babies had a chance because I did remember the granulated white sugar + it had a whole bunch of white chocolate chips which added sweetness.  We agreed to let it bake and taste right away to determine whether I needed to make another batch.  Here is the pan, 30 minutes later (minus our little tasting piece):

It came out great!!!!  I didn’t miss the brown sugar at all.  Phew! It was plenty sweet and I crossed it off the ingredients list for future reference.   Now I’m thinking maybe I’ll just halve each of the sugars next time since brown sugar may help it brown better (?)…  I was so relieved!

Here they are after cooling for about an hour, ready to be brought to the party:

They look pretty homemade, heh? My husband was kind enough to cut them up and photograph them while I was getting ready

WORKOUT

Before heading out, we hit our downstairs gym for a quick workout.  I ran somewhere between 43 and 45 minutes (my treadmill was having issues so I had to reset it a few times so that’s why I don’t know for sure).  On my running schedule I planned a 30 minute tempo run (a continuous run with an easy beginning, a build-up in the middle then ease back and slow down toward the end), but since I was pressed for time and didn’t want to switch machines (normally I’d do the 30 minute run and then jump on the elliptical) I just kept on running.  I increased my speed while varying the incline between 0 and 2; I ran between 6.5 and 7.5 mph and walked for about 2.5 minutes at the end to cool down.  It was fun and it felt great to burn some calories before some serious eating

THANKSGIVING MUNCHIES

We started with some appetizers while chatting in the kitchen.  Here is the whole spread, there were lots of goodies there!

I had 7 or 8 shrimp with cocktail sauce and some “Texan caviar” salad (beans, celery, corn and some other things I don’t recall – there was also some sugar and oil in there for sure!).  I was also sipping on some red wine

About an hour later we were ready for a sit-down dinner.  Here is a picture of the dinner table:

The beautiful turkey (my sister in law did a great job!  Doesn’t it look professional?):

And a closeup of my favorite dish: sweet potatoes with brown sugar, pecans and cranberries.  Sooo good!

And now let’s see what I ate… I was totally stuffed when I was done, but I can tell you for a fact that I ate the least out of everyone.  It was hard to stop myself when everyone was piling food on their plates miles high…

Plate #1:

I basically had a little bit of everything.  My sister-in-law made everything onion-free.  How sweet is that?!!!  Let’s see what we have here… a crescent roll, some broccoli and cheese, mashed potatoes, green beans with almonds, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and of course some turkey.  Yum!

Unfortunately sitting in front of the delicious food made me go back for seconds.  I kept it semi-reasonable, I think.  Plate #2 included another crescent roll, turkey, more sweet potatoes and broccoli and cheese.  Awesome awesome awesome!

And of course I saved some room for dessert.  Ok, not really.  I was already stuffed but after a few hours decided I had to have some dessert.  There were a lot of options but I picked a few of my favorites and kept the portions very small.  Here is my plate:

Homemade pecan pie, homemade apple/pecan cheesecake + some german chocolate cake which was brought by someone and definitely came out of a box.  It was dry and no good despite looking super delicious.  I only had a few bites of the chocolate cake but polished off the other 2.  About an hour later I had another sliver of the pecan pie.  I just really love nuts and pecans are on the top of my list!!!

I also drank maybe about 4 glasses of wine.  Overall I think I did ok.  My nephew (in-law) kept on pushing Hershey’s kisses on me.  He kept on talking about how great they were (he ate like a million of them… ok, really probably like 20) and kept on putting them in front of my face.  I was saying how I’m still full and will try them later.  I finally put them back in the bowl when he wasn’t looking and told him I had some and they were delicious.  He was happy to hear that   I think that’s a big thing for me, because normally I don’t turn down chocolate.  I had to pick my battles though and I much preferred to have another piece of homemade pie than mediocre chocolate I can have any day of the week if I really wanted it.

I also refused to take any leftovers with me!  This was also a huge step because seriously there were so many things I would love to have today.  This does, however, eliminate any temptation and I can (and did) start today on a healthy note.  I don’t feel guilty at all about indulging.  I made conscious decisions and enjoyed myself.

I did have a few chocolate truffles when I got home.  I think I was actually slight hungry by that point (or maybe less full) and I was craving chocolate, so I grabbed a box and shoved a few in my mouth.  Oops.  I didn’t take any pictures, but today I took a photo of the last little guy left in the box just so you know what they looked like   Here it is:

Total calories for the day: who knows!

BREAKFAST

This guy was gone waaay too fast. I just love yogurt combos! Today’s bowl included TJ’s nonfat European style yogurt, 1/2 banana, some double chocolate granola, kashi golean cereal and pomegranate seeds.

SNACK 1

I forgot about this until I saw this picture. These were office treats and I was feeling weak. You can find on this very classy paper plate a slice of banana bread and some kind of pie. I don’t know what it was. Neither one was very good but I ate it to be polite. I hate that! (and no, they are not from Pizzeria Regina, just the plates were )

SNACK 2

Leftover tart from Saturday.

This was supposed to be part of my lunch but after eating it I realized I really didn’t want salad. I wanted chocolate! So this brought me to my next meal…

LUNCH

I wanted chocolate so I left the office in search for some goodies, but I didn’t know what I wanted. I decided that I wanted cookies so instead of buying a bunch of cookies I figured that maybe I was just hungry. I bought a southwestern chicken sandwich from Paradise Bakery – no mayo. This was HUGE but I ate the whole thing. Between the giganto slices of bread (the guy said it was supposed to be whole wheat, but this was definitely white bread… eek!) were grilled chicken, tomato slices, tiny bit of avocado and cheese. It also came with a cookie, which I thought I took a picture of but it’s missing… I did eat it though.

The sandwich + cookie combo kept me full for many hours. I also went to a sports yoga class that helped my mood

DINNER

After less than stellar eating I was hoping to keep dinner on the light side. Instead, I hit up UFood Grill and got a chicken parm wrap with some unfries (the “fries” are baked, not fried). This is healthy, kind of. I don’t recommend combining it with my previous eats if you’re trying to lose weight. Otherwise this dinner was delicious and nutritious (although after taking the first bite I realized it tasted a lot like my dinner from yesterday since I made eggplant parm… sans the fries).

And then I remembered that we have nutella at home (almost gone now!) so I had a TJ’s blueberry frozen waffle with a healthy shmear of it + hazelnuts for you know, some healthy fat. Yeah, let’s pretend like this day never happened. I won’t tell anyone

And now I’m seriously stuffed and really am done eating. I can’t promise about tomorrow’s healthy habits. Seriously, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! Good night! ]]> http://blog.healthyandsane.com/2008/11/feeling-lazy/feed/ 8 http://blog.healthyandsane.com/2008/11/crazy-sunday-recovering-monday/ http://blog.healthyandsane.com/2008/11/crazy-sunday-recovering-monday/#comments Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:57:00 +0000 Elina http://adamholbrook.wordpress.com/2008/11/09/crazy-sunday-recovering-monday/ Sorry for not posting last night, I ended up going out. So here is the recap of the last 2 days…

I woke up yesterday with nothing on the agenda. I still can’t sleep past 9am even on a weekend, but that’s ok because that means a longer day off

I started thinking about breakfast. I prefer to make something a bit more complicated on weekends because I have the leisure of time on my hands, but yesterday I woke up craving a lox

Continue reading Crazy Sunday, recovering Monday

Last night after work, my husband picked me up and we stopped by the grocery store on the way home. The only fruit we had in the house were apples that I picked a few weeks ago, but as delicious as they are, I started going a little crazy without bananas, berries and peaches (apparently I am addicted to these… what am I going to do this winter?). Lucky for me, they had all 3 at the super market last night so today was a delicious day filled of fruit again:)

Breakfast starred some awesome strawberries! I had my “same old” yogurt parfait – I missed it, it’s been days This combo included about 3/4 cups of TJ’s European style nonfat yogurt, a serving of TJ’s nutty american trek mix, a healthy spoonful of wheat berries, a whole bunch of cut up strawberries and some multi-grain cheerios.

I ate it while catching up on blogging and it was gone way too fast! The cheerios were also a little too airy for my taste – I need a more substantial crunch next time. I considered eating a piece of chocolate or something else out of my desk drawer, but decided to just get a cup of coffee and let myself digest the breakfast before I make myself too full. It worked! I got busy at work and didn’t need a snack until hours later! Today’s pre-workout snack was a whole wheat banana pancake with 2/3 tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk – super sweet to power my long-ish run.

Yum! I had some decaf tea with it…

I decided today that the best way to have a good workout is to get really pumped up for it! I had a 50 minute tempo run “scheduled” today. This kind of run can be more mental than physical, so getting really excited for it was really key. My yummy snack was the perfect fuel too. I kicked butt on that treadmill today

After an awesome workout, I needed some food! Lunch was another bunch of leftovers that was super satisfying: 2 slices of Arnold double fiber bread, one topped with extra sharp cheddar cheese and melted in the toaster oven and another topped with Sabra hummus. I ate those with the rest of the Pacific Natural Foods organic butternut squash (no toppings this time) and a side of grape tomatoes.

This was super filling. I coudln’t even end it with another Adora disk today. I was done! Here is a better picture of the soup box. This stuff is awesome and is 100% natural. All the ingredients can be pronounced! (Note the bowl/mug is empty – that’s because I practically licked it clean ;O It was that good!)

Let’s move on to tonight’s activities and eats! Tonight was a lot of fun! We have this Thirsty Thursday thing at work (yes it’s exactly like it sounds… we go out drinking after work, every Thursday). I skip them once in a while to keep a healthy balance but tonight was also an early celebration of a co-worker’s birthday so I couldn’t miss that! The last few times I was trying to be responsible and left after one or two glasses of wine, came home and cooked a healthy dinner. But tonight I told my husband he was on his own – my plan was to grab something healthy for dinner at a local burger joint right next to the bar.

On the way to the bar I had 1/2 peach. I already gave up on having peaches for the rest of the season, but last night at a grocery store I saw this baby and I had to buy it! It was the last “decent” looking one, but it tasted great! It was HUGE (you can’t tell from the picture) so I only ate half at first so I wouldn’t get too full. I ate the rest at the bar (oh yeah, my co-workers definitely made fun of me for that!… oh well!).

Sorry for the blurry photo, it was taken mid-stride.

At the bar I had 2 glasses of red wine until my stomach started to growl. I don’t drink that much these days so I was definitely feeling tipsy and I needed food asap! The rest of the peach just got me hungrier so I said my good byes and planned to go to B.Good. (As a side note, B.Good is a really great local healthy burger place. The owners have a real passion for natural foods and everything is hand made. If you are ever in the Boston area, definitely check out this place! You can read more about their burger “philosophy” on their website). As I was leaving the bar (I had my coat on and all) a few other co-workers walked in and made me promise I’ll be back. I couldn’t resist! I did want to catch up with them.

As I said, I was definitely feeling the effects of alcohol (what happened to me, I’ve become such a light weight! hehe). I knew I was going back to the bar at which I would consume more drinks (read: more calories) so I wanted something light. I stared at the menu and couldn’t make up my mind, so I went with my stand-by: the “El-guapo” turkey burger. The el-guapo comes with “lean, all-natural bacon, jalapeno-ranch, lettuce, tomato and onion”. I ordered mine sans the onions of course!…with a diet coke for a drink (I am trying to eliminate artificial sweetners from my diet, but diet coke is still the drink of choice once in a while… it could have been worse!).

Here is the burger up close:

These are really really good! Perfectly grilled, with the perfect amount of spice! The bacon looked greasy, but it tasted great! I cut this up and ate exactly 3/4 of the burger + maybe 1/2 of the soda. It was time to get back to the bar

Sorry, there were no pictures of me at the bar… we all know what a glass of wine looks like, right? I ended up chatting so much that I actually didn’
t drink anything else after that.
Honestly, I still feel the wine. So if anyone is counting, that’s 2 glasses tonight. I’d say they were generous 2 glasses

That’s it for today. I think I may have a new reader (hi Katie!). She’s my co-worker’s girlfriend and apparently likes food blogs. This particular co-worker I believe thinks I’m a weirdo for taking pictures of my food. Maybe Katie will change his mind… or maybe she’ll join him too! I’m trying to be less shy about telling people about this blog. It’s still a work in progress, but I really enjoy writing it. Tomorrow is Friday and also happens to be my all-bets-are-off-day because my husband and I are going out to a fancy dinner. Tomorrow’s post should be more “picture-esque” since I won’t be eating leftovers All right, enough of my blabbering. Good night!

After breakfast, I did a lot of blog reading. It was really nice to catch up on all random features the bloggers have… it was very relaxing and informative. I did this while finishing up my cup of coffee. Not a bad way to start the day. After a few hours of this, my husband woke up and we decided to relax on the coach and watch some tv. He tried one of my bagels, by the way, and loved them! Yay! He was also originally a bit disappointed by their size (they are small) but they are quite dense and by the time he finished it, he said he was very satisfied. I believe he didn’t have anything until lunch which was almost 4 hours later. Not bad!

So we decided to catch up on some “Phantom Gourmet” episodes. And the new episode was all on desserts. After drooling over everything for almost an hour, I grabbed one of my brownies.

It did the trick!

And then a few hours later we met my parents for lunch at La Verdad, an authentic mexican restaurant a few minutes from our place. La Verdad is one my absolute favorite mexican restaurants. Their tacos are amazing and rival any tacos in California (I’ve only been to California once and tried their awesome tacos, but a few people from CA confirmed this too)! I keep forgetting which taco is my favorite, so I always get a mix of 3 different ones. Today I ordered Pollo Pibil (Achiote and sour orange BBQ chicken), Carnitas (Confit pork, cilantro, onions, salsa verde, chicharrone) and Benny Lengua (Braised tongue, Salsa Arbol, ciantro and onion):

I said no onions on anything (I hate onions with a passion!!!!) but the tongue one had some cooked onions in it, so I only had a taste and didn’t finish it. Today the chicken taco was the best one. I also had a bite of of the wings appetizer we got for the table and a bite of my mom’s chicken mushroom quesadilla. So good! I think I did quite well for eating out!

A few hours later I munched on a small apple (not pictured) and had an Adora calcium chocolate:

These little chocolate disks are great! They taste like the real thing and provide 50% of daily calcium and 25% of Vitamin D. Awesome stuff!

And then for dinner I was craving a yogurt parfait. I think I missed it since I haven’t had it in a few days. I went to TJ’s yesterday and they were out of the TJ’s greek yogurt I always get, so I got the European style yogurt. OMG, this stuff is so good. It tasted exactly like the yogurt I ate for breakfast every morning on my honeymoon in Italy. The first bite brought me right back! It’s also twise as cheap as the greek yogurt and almost 4 times cheaper than fage. So yeah, I’m a covert I had the usual combo: yogurt, 1/2 banana, a serving of TJ’s nutty american trailmix and some kashi golean cereal. Yum!

And one for close-up…

Ooey, gooey yumminess! And then I prepped a bunch of stuff for tomorrow….

I cooked up some turkey burgers for dinner tomorrow (I’m coming home late so I wanted it to be prepared already), made my lunch, and then yup, I baked some more cookies. I had some pumpkin left in the fridge and I didn’t want it to go bad. So I baked. Apparently I just can’t stop baking this weekend. I used this recipe from Cookie Madness, except I used a little less oil and substituted half of the sugar with splenda (I’m trying to use up the last of the box… I won’t be purchasing it again). Here are the crops of the day cooling on a cooling rack:

Gotta give you a close-up of these too…

And of course I couldn’t go without tasting them, so I shared one with my husband. Here is my half:

They were pretty yummy but slightly dry. You really need all the oil, heh?

And now it’s a little after 10:30pm and I still haven’t gone to the gym. I have a lot of energy, so I may still have to swing by there for a quick one.

See you tomorrow!