New Home

Hi Everyone:
After a lot of thought - I have given Sugar and Spice a new home.
Please see this link for the new "work in progress" home for the blog:

http://sugarnspiceblog.wordpress.com/

The site is not perfect yet - but there are a couple of posts already, so check it out. From now on, I will be posting to this site. I will have the e-mail subscription up soon, I hope and I will keep you all posted.

Like I said - this is certainly a work in progress right now. I have not gotten the blog to where I want it to be yet - but it is coming together.

Thanks to my few friends who actually read this blog on a semi-regular basis, I really appreciate the support! Please keep reading - and thank you!

Tuesday - too far behind!!

Hi Everyone:

What is going on with me this week? Sorry for not posting yesterday.
I'm doing an oh so brief post during lunch - and sorry for not including the pictures!

I am proud to report that I had breakfast at home this morning!! I had only been up for twenty - thirty minutes when I had my bowl of Kashi Vive with 1% milk. Woo-hoo! That was at 7:35 this morning. I remained full until 10:45 which is pretty good for me!

I will devote a special blog entry about my morning snack, which will be post-gym workout tonight!

At lunch I had a peanut butter & jam sandwich (options are slim at home!) on two pieces of fresh (and wonderful!) Arnold double fiber bread! I was looking for double protein when I went to the store last night - but there were only two loaves left in the store, and their "eat by" date was smudged and I couldn't tell if the date had already passed. I HATE IT when that happens! I am yet to get my hands on Arnold Double Protein Bread!!! Next week, hopefully will be the week!

Anyway - back to the sandwich. I had a tablespoon of Teddy peanut butter on the sando along with a tablespoon of TJ's reduced sugar raspberry jam and it was a great combo.

I also had half a cup of plain (yuck) TJ's Greek yogurt. I do not like eating plain yogurt of any kind. But I make myself do this because it's the best type of yogurt. I put some add-ins to make it a little easier to eat! Some slivered almonds, peanut butter puffs (Pandas!) and just a few (10) semi-sweet chocolate chips. I am hoping this will go a long way to filling me up!

After the yogurt I had a clementine. Ben and I bought a box of them last night at Stop & Shop. This one and the one I had last night after dinner were not quite as good as the ones my mom had at home - but they are definitely pretty good. Now that we have an entire box, I will probably start eating about two a day!

That about covers lunch.
Now for my Question of the day:

I just finished reading Sammy's House by Kristin Gore. It was such a fun read, and I am sad that it is over. I am looking for book recommendations!

What should my next read be? Fiction, non-fiction, political, historical, any of these will do!

If you have any ideas for books - please leave a comment below. Thanks!

Ok - I am done with lunch and must get back to work. Enjoy the rest of your day! I will post more tonight.

Snowy Sunday!

Hi All -

Happy Sunday! I was expecting some snow when I woke up this morning, but there was only a dusting on the ground. However, it did continue to flurry most of the morning and afternoon - but we did not get any accumulation.

I woke up around 9 o'clock this morning. The first thing I did was warm up the small amount of oats left over from yesterday's breakfast. I added raisins, a couple of slivered almonds, semi-sweet chocolate chips and a small bit of Teddy. Yum. I knew that Ben was making a brunch later today, so I did not want a huge breakfast - but I also did not want to be starving by the time brunch came around! The bowl has about a half cup of oats, which I warmed in the microwave with a couple of tablespoons of milk to re-hydrate them.

Ben later made us homemade whole wheat waffles! I had two and they were amazing. The recipe Ben used was from his childhood in Iowa. I love the recipe because it does not call for sugar! Ben also bought fresh fruit from the grocery store - I had a helping of cantaloupe which was really great. The other thing on my plate is a Morningstar Farms veggie sausage patty - great protein!

We enjoyed brunch around noon time today. It was so great!
Today we discovered that Daisy is as big a fan of Barack Obama as Ben and I are! She enjoyed listening and watching him today on Meet The Press... seriously - isn't this a little strange? She looked at him on the television for a few minutes. I am glad I had my camera to capture the moment!

Around 4pm I had a snack - the last clementine in the house! I will have to get some more this week. They have been my go to snack this week.

What is not pictured are a couple of other snacks I have had today as well. Five Kashi whole wheat crackers and a Holiday sugar cookie left over from the party last night!

I am beginning to think of the Turkey chili that I am going to make for dinner tonight. I will post the recipe if it turns out well!

While I did not get to the gym today, I did spend most of the day cleaning and organizing, so I feel like I have got a bit of exercise! I definitely should have gone for a run this afternoon, but I will definitely get back to the gym tomorrow.

Hope you are all having a great Sunday! I will post more tonight.
So long!

Saturday continued & Holiday party #1 of the season!

Hi All -
Hope you're all having a great weekend! Ben and I worked on cleaning and picking up the house a bit today. Ben is an amazing person when it comes to picking up and organizing! Our living room looks amazing now, thanks to him.

I had lunch around 2:30 this afternoon. I used our oh so useful toaster oven to make an amazing sandwich! I toasted a whole wheat English muffin, and then melted one slice of reduced fat American cheese on the muffin after toasting it a bit. I then added some of the tuna from yesterday, spinach and a bit of mustard. YUM!


For some reason I put some kettle baked potato chips onto my lunch plate. They were super and made lunch great!

Soon after lunch, Ben and I left for Salem. We spent about an hour and a half walking around the historic district of the town which was soo beautiful. I just loved the historic homes in this town!

Later in the evening we went to our friends Laurie and Trent's home for a holiday party. We listened to very interesting holiday music - has anyone heard of Johnny Bowtie?? Wow - if you ever find a holiday music CD with Johnny Bowtie on it - pick it up and you'll be in for a treat. It's sort of "bad" holiday music - but seriously entertaining!

Laurie and Trent put together a great party!

My plate of goodies includes a handful of kettle corn, sliced apples and pumpkin dip (awesome Laurie!) dark chocolate covered pretzels, a couple of tortilla chips, and a cinnamon graham cracker. I later went back for a helping of an amazing artichoke dip made by my friend Jenny. I cannot believe I forgot to take a picture of it... it was fantastic!

For dinner we had an amazing salad, homemade macaroni & cheese, and a turkey casserole. I tried a bit of all of these, along with a piece of sour dough bread. I did not quite finish the turkey casserole, but I went back for seconds of the salad because it was amazing. Yum.


A little while later we all went back for dessert! Here is what my plate looked like - wow!

The Trader Joe's peppermint cookie was incredible! The chocolate disaster on the top of the plate was a great chocolate cake - I'm not sure what I did when I cut it and put it on my plate! I was trying to make my piece a small sliver - and I succeeded - but made a mess as well! The piece of dessert on the right side was apple cake which was also fantastic! The brownie in the middle might have been good - but I was not able to eat it. I made the brownies, so at least I got to try all of the other dessert options. We actually had to take home a few of the brownies after the party - so maybe I will eat one tomorrow!

Here is a great picture of Ben and his new friend Benny (Laurie and Trent's cute dog!) They got along famously!


Right now we are finally home, from a sort of long day. I am enjoying a mug of tangerine orange zinger tea!


Tomorrow they are calling for snow... our first snow of the season and I'm sort of excited. I love snow on the weekends - when I do not have anything to do and when I do not have to go to work!

Ok, my bloggies - I'm off to bed soon. Have a great night everyone!

A beautiful Saturday morning

Hi All -

I slept until 9:45 this morning, after a few early morning wake ups...

Once I was up and ready to start my day, I made a bowl of oats. It was an interesting morning in the kitchen. I have a new Calphalon one quart sauce pan, which I am now in love with. However, when you've been using "normal" or less expensive pots and pans most of your life, you have to be prepared for the change over to the new quality of Calphalon products! The water and milk I was heating up for the oats over-flowed while I was making Daisy her breakfast.... so I had a bit of a mess to clean up, and then had to add more water to replace the lost liquid. It all turned out just fine and the oats were amazing as usual.




This morning I topped my bowl of oatmeal with raisins, a couple of semi-sweet chocolate chips, slivered almonds and a spoonful of Teddy's peanut butter. For some reason it looks like a huge glob of peanut butter - but it was actually less than a tablespoon. Weird!

So, after finishing this awesome bowl, and catching up on the other food blogs that I read, Ben and I got ready for our day.

Today we are going to Salem, MA to walk around and enjoy the holiday decorations in the town. I have not been to Salem as an adult, so I am really looking forward to it!

It is now 12:15 on Saturday afternoon, and I'm a bit hungry already. I think I am going to enjoy the banana that was pictured in yesterday's blog since I never got around to enjoying it yesterday!

I will be back either later today or tomorrow to recap the rest of the day. Hope you are all having a great Saturday!!

A belated TGIF!

Hi Everyone -

Well, I'm almost always happy when it is Friday - but this week I am especially celebrating! I cannot wait for the weekend!! Tonight I am planning a trip to the gym to get a little more running in this week. I have packed my bag, and brought it into the office with me today so that my clothes and shoes won't get super cold out in the car today!

So, for a foodie re-cap of the day:


Last night I did not think ahead to pre-set the coffee maker, so when I finally got out of bed this morning I had to make the coffee and wait for it to brew. Bleh. Oh well, it worked out. I took my shower and when I was done the coffee pot was full of hot coffee. Yum! I love our Cuisinart coffee maker. I have had it for a few years, and it is a dream. It has a water filter in it as well - which I think is pretty cool. It's like an internal Brita for your coffee maker! I just have the original Cuisinart coffee maker - because when I was in the market for a new one, I had heard not so good things about the grind and brew model. I am very glad that I went ahead and bought the original model!

Hypothetically you are supposed to eat breakfast within the first half hour of waking up. This is sort of a signal to your body that you are ingesting calories and that you are not depriving your body of fuel. I guess that your body could go into "starvation mode" if you do not have breakfast, and thus your body will not start burning calories. The sooner you eat breakfast, the sooner your bod will start burning calories! I am certainly not an expert on this subject - but it is what I have read recently.

So, this morning I woke up at 7AM and did not actually consume breakfast until 9AM. As I was eating my whole wheat English muffin with a tablespoon of Teddy Peanut Butter, I got to thinking about the fact that I had been up for two hours before consuming anything substantial.

I don't really know what to say about this. But it is something I am going to work on - and I will get back to you.


Having breakfast so late worked out for me because I was not hungry until lunch time at 12:30. I had a lovely looking banana at my desk, just in case I needed a mid morning snack. Hopefully I will get around to eating it for my afternoon snack before my run.

At 11:55 Katherine and I set off for our walk. We walked for half an hour. Today was such a better day for our lunchtime walk! It was sunny and the wind was a lot calmer. We were not walking directly into the wind like we were yesterday. The water was so beautiful - it is a picturesque day out!

Two of my colleagues and I ate lunch at 12:30 this afternoon. Here is what I had:

I actually took the time this morning to make a tuna sandwich and to make my carrot sticks - which I was so happy about at lunch! I put spinach on the sandwich, and really enjoyed the carrot sticks. They really are so much better than baby carrots. I do not know why - but baby carrots always taste sweet to me. Carrot sticks are the real thing - and what I grew up on, since we did not have baby carrots when I was bringing a lunch to school as a kid.

I also enjoyed a bag of kettle baked potato chips. Wow, these were amazing. The flavor was rosemary and olive oil and they were divine!


Unfortunately, after the carrots, chips, spinach, and small tuna sandwich, I was still hungry! When I got back to my desk I enjoyed another clementine and a piece of Dove dark chocolate - and more water!



At around 4 o'clock I needed my pre-work out snack. I had a honey graham Zbar. It really hit the spot.



I left work around 5:30 and was at the gym by 6pm. I ran a really easy 2 1/2 miles and then did a quick arm workout with the weights. I was at the gym for an hour. After the gym, I walked down the street from our house to Newtonville Pizza and ordered a cheese pizza for dinner. It was so nice to relax on Friday night and realize that I had survived the week and I had a lovely weekend ahead!

Unfortunately, I was too exhausted and out of it as I had dinner to remember to take a picture. I had two pieces of cheese pizza - and I put our Trader Joe's red pepper flakes and garlic powder on the pizza which made it perfect! So yummy. When Ben got home from his happy hour, he had a pizza for dinner as well. We relaxed for the rest of the night and watched one of our favorite holiday movies, Home For the Holidays. Unfortunately, I fell asleep in the last twenty minutes or so of the movie, and then slept on the couch for an hour. Thankfully Ben woke me up at 11 to get me to go to bed.

I did not get to posting this blog last night (Friday) so I'm posting today (Saturday morning!) - happy weekend everyone!

Thursday's lunch, dinner & cake!

Hi All -

Wow, another stressful day at work and by the time I got home I was totally wiped out. I know I would have probably felt better if I had gone to the gym - but I just did not have it in me today! My body was a bit achy, and I was just exhausted when I got home.

But the re-cap of the day continues:

At lunch my friend Katherine and I went for a walk for 15 or 20 minutes. Walking by the water was sooo windy today! It was cloudy, and looking a bit like rain, so we cut the walk a little short. Meh! I wanted to be able to walk for longer, but we had a one o'clock meeting and still had to get something to eat before hand - so we were a bit short of time today. After the walk, Katherine and I split a sandwich - and due to the lack of time, I totally forgot my camera again! I have no idea why I keep forgetting my camera at lunch - it must be due to the constant LACK OF TIME I have been experiencing ALL WEEK!!

Ok, so the sandwich was really good! But I am so glad that we split it. It was a curry chicken salad wrap - and the wrap was whole wheat. Yum. It's my favorite sandwich our caf offers, I think. The curry chicken has a little bit of mayonnaise, I am sure - but it isn't much, thankfully. The other things in the chicken are celery, red grapes (yay!) and walnuts. It is awesome.

The half a sandwich held me over for a while. At 2:30 I had another clementine - soo good.
At 3:30 I finally got to my whole wheat English muffin with a bit of peanut butter. Wow, that kept me full for a really long time - until dinner around 7:45 tonight.


Before dinner tonight, I borrowed a recipe from Tina at Carrots 'n' Cake. It is a holiday cake recipe - and we can now say that we've made it, tried it and loved it. Thanks Tina! I love this cake because there are spices in it! I did follow the recipe - which called for ginger, nutmeg, vanilla and cinnamon... four of my favorite flavors! Check out how our cake turned out:



While the cake was baking, I put some leftovers into the microwave. The chicken & broccoli with brown rice was better today. This looks like a big plate - but that's because it's a lunch plate - not a dinner plate. Just had to clarify for the record!


Along with dinner, I had a glass of milk with a teaspoon of chocolate syrup. I do not like the taste of dairy milk - so I often flavor it with just a little bit of syrup so I can get the protein and calcium!

During Grey's Anatomy Ben and I enjoyed some of our holiday cake with some Friendly's low fat vanilla ice cream. Yum!


Well, it's 10:40 and I'm pretty much ready for bed. I am so hoping that tomorrow will go quickly, so that I can get to the weekend!

I hope you all have a great Friday. See you tomorrow, my bloggies!

Thursday:

Hi Everyone -

This morning I enjoyed yet another new breakfast creation! I am very happy that I went to Trader Joe's last night after working out... it has certainly helped to have some food in the house!

Last night I picked up a container of Trader Joe's plain Greek yogurt. I had not tried the TJ's brand of Greek Yogurt yet - but I had heard from other bloggers (thanks Kath!) that it is quite good. I have to also say that I do not like plain yogurt - but I eat it anyway!

So, this morning I put half a cup of the yogurt in my to go container to start with. I topped it with a drizzle of honey, a dash of cinnamon spice, a palm-ful of granola and some amazing fresh raspberries!! All of the toppings also came from Trader Joe's (but not from last night's shop except for the raspberries - which are amazing!!!)

I ate this creation at 8:30 this morning. The yogurt itself only measured in at between 60 - 80 calories and 12 grams of protein (awesome!) and with the toppings I'm sure it added another 100 calories at least. But that is still a very low cal breakfast for me.

I am pleased that it kept me full until 11am. At that time I had my small banana and a teaspoon of peanut butter with it. This is one of the most satisfying snacks in the world. Super yummy. It's noon now, and I am getting ready to go for a walk. I will certainly be ready for lunch in half an hour - but I am not dying of starvation, which is great.

My lunch choices are still slim at home - and I did not have time to make a tuna sandwich, which is what I really wanted for lunch today. Booo! Tonight I will definitely prepare lunch ahead of time, so I will not be forced to buy another cup of soup at the caf. Luckily today they are serving chicken and vegetable soup, which is usually good. It will go well with the English muffin and clementine I have packed!

I will be back in a bit...

The remainder of Wednesday...

Hi All-

Well, I'm not sure if there will be any photos tonight and that is too bad - because that is what makes the posts fun! But my photo web tool is seriously acting up - and I can't seem to get the pictures uploaded - UGH!

Anyhow, so the waffles did the trick - I did not get hungry again until about 11:35 this morning... not too bad considering I ate them at 8:30. At that point I ate a few almonds, and they definitely held me over for the hour I had to go before lunch time. The waffles are definitely one of my new favorite options for breakfast - it's always good to mix it up! However, I am hoping that next week (when I get back on track and start getting up at a normal time again!) I will be back to making my daily bowl of AM Oates :) I miss them!

Ok - finally! Here is a picture of the waffles!


And here are the almonds I had as my pre-lunch snack:

Ok, so the pictures are still acting weird - but at least they are here!
The not so good news is that I forgot my camera as I was running to lunch. I had such a busy day today, so much going on - so I definitely didn't have the blog on my mind the whole day - shame on me!
But for lunch I had a cup of soup (our "small" size in the caf) and the soup of the day was a lean beef and veggie soup with just a bit of rice in it. I wish that it had been barley because that would have been awesome - but the rice wasn't too bad either. It was spicy, too which I loved. Apparently eating spicy foods will fill you up quicker than eating bland foods... I read that in a study somewhere recently... but I can't tell you where. If I remember, I'll post it! The soup came with a small whole grain roll (about half the size of your palm) which I ate plain (yay - no butter for me!). I also enjoyed yet another amazing clementine! They are really making my lunches so perfect these days - I am so glad that they are in season once again!


This picture is from the other day - but I just had to add some sort of image for lunch today!

I have to say my lunch was pretty good today. I hardly ever eat beef, so I think I probably scored some extra iron and protein that I would normally miss out on. It was very lean, so there wasn't too much added fat - but the sodium content could be another story all together. I won't go there for now!

When I got back to my desk, I had my post lunch treat - a piece of Dove dark chocolate. I love these little pieces of dark chocolate. Tomorrow I will examine and give you a basic calorie / nutrition break down on a single piece of the chocolate. But I know that I did it once - and I think it came out to about 35 calories for one piece.... I hope I am right about that - because that would be great for a piece of oh so good chocolate! Totally worth it, in my book!

I had my afternoon snack at 3:15 today. It was another awesome vanilla Chobani and peanut butter puffs. It is the most perfect snack in the world. I am not sure - but I think I have to thank Jenna from Eat live run - I am pretty sure I remember reading about this snack back in the day, I just can't believe it's taken me this long to finally try the creation myself!



This snack kept me going until Ben and I ate dinner which was around 8pm tonight! I had such a busy day at work - and then after work, too. I made it to the gym - yippee! It was a lot of fun. Ben and I did weights for the first twenty minutes.... then I went downstairs to run (and break in my new running shoes!) Because it was the first day I was running (or wearing at all) the new shoes, I only ran 1.5 miles today. But the shoes did well! I heart them for sure. After the short run, I went back up to the third floor of our gym and did the bike for ten hard minutes - and then some stretching to warm down. It was a good visit to the gym.

After the gym, I stopped by Trader Joe's and left Ben in charge of ordering dinner. At TJs I picked up some whole wheat English muffins, TJs Greek yogurt, carrots, milk, bananas, pot stickers, raspberries (I cannot wait to have them for breakfast tomorrow!) and some other things that I can't remember right now!

Ben ordered Chinese food for tonight because neither of us had the energy to cook tonight. My order was chicken and broccoli and brown rice. I also had two pieces of scallion pancakes - which were amazing!


Well, it's 10:10 and I am done with the blog, and I have programmed the coffee maker to start doing its thing at 6:30 tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed that I will be able to wake up bright and early!

I do realize that I still have to blog about my great night out with Stephanie and our dinner at Figgs. It was amazing (as always) and a lot of fun. I will definitely get to the pics and all of that fun stuff tomorrow.

Until then, my bloggies, have a lovely night and a great Thursday morning!!

Wednesday - a new discovery

Hi Everyone -

NO pictures this morning, but I wanted to get started with a really quick post. I'm getting everything back on track today if it's the last thing I do! I was able to get up half an hour earlier than yesterday- so that is an improvement (let's not discuss the fact that I set TWO alarms this morning - one at 6:25 and one at 6:35 and I managed to ignore them and get up at 7:25!)

This morning I made a new (and amazing) discovery!! Thanks to one of my best friends (GILL) I tried Kashi Strawberry and Flax waffles a while back. I bought the box, and the first morning I tried them I prepared two with a little bit of Earth Balance and 2 tablespoons of reduced sugar syrup. I was hungry in a couple of hours - and it was a bit of a struggle to make it to 12pm for lunch.

So today I switched up the preparation a bit! I still had two waffles - but instead of EB and syrup I added a little bit of Teddy Peanut Butter to each piece! (It was just under a table spoon of PB) Wow - not only did it taste amazing - but I can tell the extra substance might be able to keep me going for a while - at least until 12:30 today when I'll be able to have lunch. I'll keep you posted! And later (at lunch or tonight) I will post the pictures - yes, I did remember to take them today!

I took the time to pack my gym bag (which is actually one of the super nice bags from LuluLemon, which I love) and brought it to work with me... that way I can go to the gym straight from work - it's the only way to insure that I will get there! I need to run and do some weights - I can't wait to get started!

OK - I hope everyone is having a good start to their Wednesday! Happy hump day!

Tuesday - not yet back in the swing of things...

Hi Everyone!

Happy Tuesday... for some reason, this is feeling like a really long week to me! But I wanted to get one post up for you today.

SO, this morning (yet again) I was not able to get out of bed at the correct time. What is wrong with me!? I got to work again at 9am.... but I was able to eat breakfast on the run which was a treat! I forgot to take a picture, but I will tell you what I made. It was a Kashi Go Lean protein shake - the vanilla flavor. I was scraping the bottom of the container today, but still had enough to get a great shake and 26 grams of protein! I love this stuff. Two scoops has 220 calories, .5 grams of fat, 33 G carb (ok, so there is a bit of sugar in the mix - but it is cane sugar which makes it a little better!), 7 grams of FIBER and 21 Grams of Protein! The extra protein came from mixing the scoops with skim MILK. (which of course added about 70 calories as well - but still less than a 300 calorie breakfast which is fine on a day that I"m not working out in the morning).

For lunch I had a boca burger sando with whole wheat bread (toasted) and a piece of low fat American cheese (melted via the toaster oven at work!) along with half a cup of spinach on top of the sandwich and a teaspoon of mustard and ketchup. YUM!

After the sando I realized that I needed something else to tide me over until my afternoon snack. Chobani vanilla to the rescue. It was a great day for Greek Yogurt - and I added a few peanut butter Pandas to the top of it. What a treat! This was the best Part II of lunch I have had in a long while.

After lunch I did get outside for a quick ten minutes... it wasn't too cold, and my face needed to see the sun for a few minutes. I hope that I got some vitamin D even though I was only out for such a short time this afternoon! Tomorrow hopefully I will be able to walk at work. Exercise and Sun - you can't beat that combo in December!!

My afternoon snack today was a Blueberry Cliff Zbar. I'm meeting my friend Stephanie for dinner tonight - and we'll probably be eating around 7:30 or 8pm... I'm hoping my snack will be enough to get me to dinner!

I am so excited for dinner tonight! Stephanie and I are going to Figgs on Charles Street and I am sure we will enjoy some sort of amazing Pizza tonight!

Until then, my friends - have a good rest of your Tuesday!

Monday - back to the grind!

Hi Everyone -

Ok, so I've been away for a while! I had a lovely five day "mini-holiday" which was a lot of fun. Thanksgiving was great and the other days were also really fun and relaxing. I did not take pictures of the food I ate over the holiday, which is too bad because there was some great food! Ben and I had Thanksgiving with my family (mom and sister) and we all had a part in preparing food for that day. I did some of the side dishes (green beans, mashed potatoes), my sister did hors d'oeuvres (an awesome spinach dip with Fage Greek yogurt, garlic and water chestnuts!) in a pumpernickel bread bowl and veggies... mom and Ben did the turkey together and my mom made an amazing pumpkin cheese cake for dessert! Wow! Oh, the other things we had are creamed onions, and sweet potatoes that had nutmeg and cinnamon - that was one of my favorite dishes...

After a lot of fun, eating, exercise and reading, today was back to the grind. Ugh! It was so hard to get up this morning. Ben was once again a life savor - up so much earlier than I was, he put started the coffee, thank goodness! If it wasn't for my cup of coffee, I never would have gotten started this morning.

So, I got to work a little later than normal and ended up having breakfast around 9am. I felt the need for some protein, and luckily I had a Pure Protein bar in my bag.

It was the S'mores flavor, and it was good! It kept me going until 12:30 this afternoon when I finally stopped to have lunch.


I had a few errands to run at lunch, and ended up going out to get a salad while I was out and about. It is strange to have a car at work again - and it was so much fun to actually have a productive lunch hour!

The salad I ended up with was fantastic. I do not know what was wrong with my camera at lunch - the photograph is definitely not the best. Sorry guys!

But here is the basic idea of what was in the salad.... broccoli, red pepper, roasted red pepper, orange pepper, cucumbers, carrots, artichoke heart, lettuce, mushrooms, chick peas, sunflower seeds (just a couple) and for a dressing I drizzled a touch of olive oil and then added a bit of balsamic vinegar. Along with the salad, I had a piece of fresh (and so soft!) pita bread - that was also fantastic!


I am guessing that my lunch might not have had enough protein in it.... but it was still amazing. I could not find a good protein item at the salad bar today (especially since I rarely eat cheese). A couple of hours later I was ready for a snack.... I had a fun sized Snickers bar (yikes!) and an amazing clementine.



Wow, the clementine was soo amazing! I really have enjoyed these for the last week (my mom had a ton waiting for us when we got home for Thanksgiving - thanks Mom!)

About an hour later (around 3:30 this afternoon) I did enjoy my second snack... a few almonds.

I find it so hard to get back on track with healthy eating after a holiday!
Today I was rushed in the morning, and it kind of threw me off for the rest of the day. I did not have enough time to pack a lunch, and plan out what I was going to eat for the day. Even though it looks like I've eaten a lot today - I think most of the things I had to eat were a pretty good choice...

I had to work late tonight, and got home after 6pm. Today is my 2 year anniversary with Ben (yay!) and he made us an amazing dinner to celebrate! We had salmon, whole wheat pasta, and spinach for dinner and it was fantastic!


I really enjoyed dinner tonight. Ben makes salmon soo well. I always enjoy how he prepares it and what he pairs it with for dinner.

So, it's Monday and I've finished my blog for the evening. I'm so hoping to get back on track with eating, exercise and the blog this week! Hope everyone is getting back to work, school, life without too much trouble today. Happy December 1st everyone!

A little more inspired...

Is it really Sunday night already??

Well, I went to the gym this afternoon and ran 3 1/2 miles!! It took me a while, but I did it and I am so glad that I did - it felt great and I still feel awesome now, four hours later. It certainly helped to watch the Patriots game while I was running.

After running I did weights for 25 minutes (leg press, calf exercises and arms). When I got home I ate a small banana right away. After showering and looking around the kitchen for a while, I finally came up with a brilliant idea! I made a boca burger sandwich on two pieces of Trader Joe's fiber Whole Wheat bread. I put the pieces of bread in the toaster oven and melted one piece of low fat American cheese on one side. With a little bit of ketchup and mustard the sandwich was amazing! The picture leaves a bit to be desired, but still - here it is:



Thankfully my other afternoon activity was just as exciting - picking Ben up from the Airport. Yay! He was actually half an hour early - and I was early, too since I used the Massport website to check on his arrival time. Sweet!

On our way home we stopped at Whole Foods where Ben got a "salad" for dinner and I got a piece of pizza - that turned out to be really big (and a great Whole Foods bargain for 2.25!) Ben helped me finish the pizza - it was really good!



To celebrate Ben's home coming I stopped by Bread and Chocolate to see Steve.... and pick up two cupcakes to enjoy later tonight!! I can't wait to enjoy a little bit of each of them!


Well, I'm going to say good night for now. I'll be posting something tomorrow - but I can't promise that it will be too interesting, since I don't have a clue what is for lunch or dinner tomorrow!

Enjoy what remains of the weekend!

Uninspired, yet again

Hi All -

Well, this is a struggle today! What did I have for breakfast? A bowl of cereal. 3/4 cup of Kashi Vive and a top layer of EnviroKidz Peanut Butter Panda Puffs, with Silk Light Vanilla Soy milk.


For the second day in a row, my coffee didn't taste all that great. I think I've been making it too strong for the 1% milk I've been adding to it... but I'm missing my coffee. I might have to swing by Starbucks to get a latte later today.

Well, I have no idea what I will be having for lunch - but I'm hoping to be inspired to make something that can be popped into the toaster oven

I will definitely be going to the gym for a run and some weights. I wish I could run outside, but the temps are still hovering at about 30 degrees and the wind is so strong. No running for me outside this morning!

Hopefully I will return later today with some truly inspired ideas for lunch and dinner. I am keeping my fingers crossed!