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!

Saturday errands, tuna and tofu!

Hi All -

Wow was it cold yesterday!! I had a few errands to run, and it was just so cold. Today is supposed to be a few degrees warmer - thank goodness! The other great thing about today is that Ben is coming home!!

Yesterday after the oatmeal, I went to Natick to Bed Bath and Beyond to finally get a toaster oven. I have been wanting a toaster oven for two years (since I moved out of my apartment with Rachel - since we had one there!) so yesterday I picked up a new Cuisinart toaster oven! I can't wait to use it.

After getting the toaster oven and a couple of other things at Bed Bath & Beyond, I went to Petco to pick up some things for Daisy. (dry food, wet food, kitty litter, fun stuff!)

On my way home I stopped by Brueggers which is a pretty good bagel shop. It doesn't compare to H&H Bagels, but for Boston it's a great bagel option. My sister and I just love the Bruegger's tuna sandwich on a bagel - and that is what I got for lunch yesterday. I had cucumbers, tomato, and sprouts on the sandwich on a just baked everything bagel!! It was sooo good. It had been about two years since I had a tuna sandwich from Brueggers and I was so excited to enjoy it!


Needless to say, the sandwich did not let me down. The picture is just of half the sandwich because I ate the first half before I could even get the camera out to take the lunch pictures!! Oops!

I spent the rest of the afternoon reading a fun book by Kristin Gore... Sammy's House. It has been such a fun read for me (as a poli-sci major) and a great follow up to her first book (Sammy's Hill). After reading for a while, I decided to watch some of Season 3 of the West Wing. In particular I was searching out episodes where Mary Louise Parker's character of Amy Gardner was featured. Her character was definitely my favorite on the series. Why could not she have ended up with Josh!?

For dinner I decided to do a semi-stir fry. I cut up a piece of Trader Joe's teriyaki tofu and a cup of broccoli. Since the tofu was already seasoned, I didn't want to add much more to it (and I didn't want to add much more sodium!) but I added a splash of lite soy sauce and a splash of rice wine vinegar mostly to add some flavor to the broccoli. The end result was divine! I also had a side of cold sesame noodles which were fantastic.



A bit later in the evening I made popcorn - but I forgot to take a picture. I assure you it was not that interesting at all.

That is a re-cap of yesterday's food. Even though I had three really good meals, I have to say that I have been feeling uninspired lately. I am going to have to figure something interesting for lunch today and for Monday and Tuesday. I find it challenging to figure these sorts of things out around Thanksgiving - because I do everything in my power to avoid the grocery stores!

More later. Hope everyone is having a relaxing Sunday morning!

Saturday Oatmeal

Hi Everyone!

I am happy to report that my camera charger finally arrived. I have no idea why it took Amazon nearly two weeks to get my order to me. Slightly annoying!

So this morning I decided to change the oatmeal around a little bit. The jury is still out on this new invention - but I think it's because I was not exactly sure about the correct proportions.

So, today I made the oatmeal with a cup of Silk light soy milk, a half cup of oats and a 1/3 cup of canned pumpkin. Once it was all cooked up I added a spoonful of Teddy Peanut butter and a couple of dashes of cinnamon. The oatmeal was really thick - due to adding the pumpkin I think.... so I had to add a little more milk, and things went down from there. It tasted good - and it was super filling - I couldn't finish the bowl!

Along with the oatmeal I'm having a strong cup of coffee. I'm very happy to have my camera working again!


Today I will be running a couple of errands and trying to pick up the house a bit. It's been a long week on my own, but Ben is coming home tomorrow - yay!

So here is more of an update of what I have been up to. Yesterday I stopped by Lululemon to pick up my new running pants. They were being tailored for me this week. I am so in love with my new running pants!! I took them to the gym and ran 2 1/2 miles and it was great. I wish I could have run outside last night - but the sun set around 4:30 and it was pitch black and COLD when I got home.

Why is it so cold right now in Boston?? Today with the wind chill they are saying it feels like 9 degrees outside. I hate it! I love winter weather - but this is freezing for November. It's not even Thanksgiving yet!

So, I ran inside at the gym last night and then did some weight training for 20 minute (mostly lower body).

After the gym I stopped by Trader Joes where I picked up tofu, stuffing (for Thanksgiving!) canned pumpkin, milk, and some ZBars for snacks. I realized this week that I was out of Zbars - I had to re-stock!

Last night for dinner I had the rest of the awesome Whole Foods chicken, veggie and rice soup with a good helping of fresh ground pepper and garlic powder. Yum. I also had an Iggy's sour dough roll with a little bit of EarthBalance. A bit after dinner, I had another Kozy Shack rice pudding. Perfect!

So, enjoy the weekend. I will be back from time to time to post now that I am "back on line". Stay warm everyone!!!

A whole week without a post!?

Hi Everyone -

Just an update since I have gone an entire week without a post. I have no idea why it is taking SO LONG to get my battery charger for my camera - but it has been over a week and a half and I'm getting nervous that it is lost in the mail or something!!

A few basic things. Twice for lunch this week I had salmon salad (canned salmon with a tablespoon of Miracle Whip mixed in) with a half cup of baby spinach on an Arnold sandwich thin. This sandwich is awesome - I love it! The protein keeps me going for hours after lunch. Along with that I had carrot sticks and Goldfish crackers.

Wednesday afternoon my snack was an Apple Pie Larabar. Yum. Tuesday my afternoon snack was an individual container of Kozy Shack rice pudding that I picked up at Whole Foods last week. It was really great - and very filling. It is all natural, and low fat - healthy dessert that tastes fantastic? I'm all about it!

Yesterday I went home sick in the middle of the day. I had a smashing head ache and a soar throat. Yuck. On my way home I stopped by Whole Foods to pick up a container of their chicken, veggie and rice soup. It hit the spot and I am happy to say that I am actually feeling a bit better today. I think it was the combo of the soup and the tea with honey that I immersed myself in yesterday afternoon and evening. I still have half the container of soup left over for lunch today, which I am looking forward to. Luckily I felt well enough to go to work this morning!

As for exercise, I've been a bit of a slacker this week. Monday I went to the gym, Tuesday I spent my "work out time" cleaning our house - which paid off nicely! Wednesday I went for a half hour "fast walk" in the freezing cold (it has only been in the 30s this week in Boston - so cold!) and Thursday my exercise was eating chicken & rice soup.

So, I'm giving the camera battery charger one more day to arrive at my doorstep before I start calling around to see what on earth happened to it. Hopefully I'll be posting tonight with pictures again!!

Happy Friday everyone!

Friday

Hi Everyone -
Happy Friday! I don't know about you, but I am super excited that the weekend is nearly here. On a sad note, my camera battery has died, and the camera charger has been MIA for a couple of weeks. I have ordered another one from Amazon, and it is on its way as we speak... so hopefully I will be able to get back to posting pictures soon!

Even without the pics, I figured I would post a couple of new things today. Today has been a day of new foods so far. This morning I got to work at 7:45 to get a bunch of stuff done, and on my way to my other office (by 9am) I decided to stop at Dunkin' Donuts because I had not had coffee or breakfast yet!

I was craving protein this morning, so I decided to be daring and try the new Dunkin Donuts egg white sandwich. Officially, the sandwich is called the Egg White Veggie Flatbread Sandwich (click to see the nutritional breakdown if you're interested!) and I have to say it was pretty good, and filling. They have another egg white option which is turkey sausage, as well - but I have not tried that one yet. I am impressed with the Dunkin Donut website now - they are noting their "healthier" options with a new logo which reads: "DDSmart". Watch out for sodium and cholesterol content, but for the most part the Smart choices are ok. The egg white sandwiches are a great addition to their menu (lower fat and cholesterol) and I was happy to make this breakfast choice today. The sandwich satisfied my need for protein with 11g! I also picked up a medium black coffee, and I added one tablespoon of light cream to it on my own.

For lunch I tried yet another new item! Last night at the grocery store I found Oikos yogurt and I was sooo excited! This is Stoneyfield's version of Greek Yogurt and I had been dying to try it out. I had never seen it in the stores in New England until last night, so I decided to try the honey on the bottom kind. I had it with my lunch today - and I have to say it was awesome. I loved the honey flavor!! It's a great option to have instead of fruit if you're not in the mood. I have been eating so many strawberry and blueberry Greek Yogurt combos lately, that I was excited for the change. This container was 120 calories, 0 grams of fat and 13 grams of protein! The only down side was that it was sort of pricey at Shaw's last night - $2.00 for one container! The Chobani at Stop and Shop is 4 for $5. I hope the prices go down a bit for Oikos.

In addition to my new found Greek yogurt love for lunch I enjoyed an Arnold's sandwich thin, one tablespoon of Teddy's peanut butter and baby carrots. It was extremely important to have the Greek yogurt to add more substance to my lunch, that's for sure. But all of it together was the perfect combo. Oh - I also had a "fun size" 3 Musketeer bar - which must be mentioned!

That about wraps up what I have had for food today - along with 36 ounces of water so far. I have an apple pie Larabar waiting for an afternoon snack if needed.

I hope everyone is having a great day! Lunch time is over, so it's back to work.

Wednesday food recap -

Hi everyone:

Wow, this has been a pretty fast week - and having Tuesday off was a huge help in this!

So, this morning I had another bowl of oats. It was really fantastic, actually. I re-hydrated the oats I made on Tuesday with a small amount of 1% milk, and warmed it up in the microwave for 1 minute and thirty seconds. Then I added the toppings I had put together at home this morning... one spoonful of Teddy Peanut Butter, one spoonful of pumpkin butter, a palmful of granola, raisins, and a sprinkle of flax seed. Sound familiar? I know. How boring! But it kept me full all morning. I didn't end up eating lunch until 1:30 this afternoon!


I went for a half hour walk with my friend Becky at lunch time. It was a really nice day out and we actually were warm in our winter-ish clothes. It was sort of a nice surprise. We had a great walk, and it was wonderful to be out in the sun for half an hour, especially now that it is dark by the time we leave work these days.

As I said, I did not end up having lunch until 1:30 this morning. Lunch was good and filling. Here is what I enjoyed:
sandwich with Arnold's whole wheat sandwich thins

3 slices of Boar's Head chicken

1/2 cup spinach

1 t. mustard

1/2 t. miracle whip

Carrots

Whole wheat - honey pretzel sticks

Water

I had an afternoon meeting which was very interesting, and by the time it was over it was 3:45 in the afternoon already! I quickly enjoyed a few grapes that I had brought with me for my afternoon snack - and of course I forgot to take a picture of them!! I only had an hour left of work. I had to leave when my 8 1/2 work day was over because I needed to drop off my car (again) at our mechanic. Fun! But it was another nice walk from the mechanic's to our house.

When I got home it was time to get ready for the gym. I was waiting for Ben to get home, so decided to start the work out early. I did an ab work out for 20 minutes and then did some push ups. After that I was ready for a pre-gym snack. I had a piece of Arnold's healthy multigrain bread, and a small spread of Teddy peanut butter. (Yes, I can't get enough of it)



Ben got home soon after I finished my snack and we were off to the gym. We did weights together for the first twenty minutes and then split up for our cardio. I walked, ran and jogged on the treadmill for 25 minutes and Ben hit the bike. It was a good work out. With the walk at lunch, the abs and the gym, I felt like I had a good exercise day for the books!

When we got home Ben took over in the kitchen. I'll have to post the pics tomorrow because I am done blogging for tonight.

So long everyone! Hope you are all enjoying Wednesday evening.

Healthy meals for under $10?? Yay!

Hi All -

So yesterday I spent nearly 50 dollars at the grocery store - these days that is soooo easy to do! Before I got out of the produce / natural food section I had already spent $36....

As you might imagine, I was thrilled when I saw my Health.com newsletter appear today with the headline: Healthy Meals for Under $10 (or something like that)

Click here for the link to their article - it is well worth the read. Enjoy - and post a comment if you end up making one of these recipes - let us know how it goes!!

If you're ever stuck at a McDonald's...

I meant to post this on Sunday! But here are some thoughts about what to do when you're confronted with Fast Food.

On our drive home on Sunday I was confronted with an eating dilemma. We were stopped in Connecticut and the only place we could grab something to eat was McDonald's. I was so annoyed! I had really been trying to hold out for the Mass Pike so that I could get a wrap from Fresh City.... but it was 5pm and the only thing I had eaten today was the big breakfast at Dobbs Diner and a small handful of cashews before we took off on our drive.

I was studying the menu (totally disappointed that they did not have their nutritional information anywhere that I could find) and was preparing to make a choice. My first instinct was to get the basic hamburger. I vaguely remembered reading an article saying that the actual plain hamburger was not the worst thing for you.

But then I saw the Ranch Chicken Snack Wrap. I thought that would be good, too! For some reason, I switched from my gut instinct (hamburger) and got the "snack wrap" (I am pretty sure that the word "snack" made me think it would have a smaller calorie total).

OK, of course part of this decision was my fault. I opted for the crunchy chicken rather than grilled (what was I thinking??) and the snack wrap was very good - although obviously small. Ben got the classic chicken sandwich (crunchy as well) and he did not get fries - yay! His sandwich looked very good, and he liked it. My snack wrap definitely kept me full, until 8pm when we got home.

Once we were home, I turned my computer on, I went to the McDonald's website to check the nutritional information of what I had eaten at our pit stop today. My snack wrap was 340 calories and 17 grams of fat (4.5 saturated fat!) and 14 grams of protein. The hamburger would have been a smarter choice (I should have stuck with my gut instinct). The hamburger was only 250 calories, 9 grams of fat (3.5 sat) and 12 grams of protein. I am not going to dwell on this. But at least next time I'm stuck at McDonalds, I will know enough to get the hamburger - or wait for Fresh City !

Once I was settled in, back at home, I got a snack for myself. I made one piece of whole wheat toast with Teddy's peanut butter, a small banana and a glass of 1% milk. It was the perfect snack / meal.

Tuesday

Hi All -

Today was a nice day off from work. I accomplished quite a bit. I was able to sleep in until 9:15 this morning which was nice.

I got up, watched CNN, made oatmeal and coffee and eventually got out the door for a nice walk. My oatmeal was nice this morning. I made it with soy milk instead of water, which made it creamy. I added pumpkin butter, a spoonful of Teddy peanut butter, ground flax seed, and a palmful of granola to add some crunch. I ate at the oatmeal around 10am and did not have another thing to eat until 4pm!! That was quite a long stretch of no hunger. Very unusual for me.
I met Ben in Newton Centre for an early lunch.... but unfortunately, I only sat with him because I was not hungry at all when we met up! We went to PIE right in the middle of Newton Centre. Ben had a mac & cheese pie and I had a couple of bites. The consistency of the pie was amazing. I have no idea why I didn't actually take a picture of it.
But I did take a photo of the Nantucket Nectar juice I enjoyed while sitting with Ben. It was a pom / pear mix. I had one serving of the juice (there are always two per bottle) and Ben had the rest of it.

As I said, I had lunch around 4 this afternoon. That was such a strange time to eat, and it's sort of messing me up for the rest of the night. After meeting up with Ben I walked around and shopped for four hours! It was great to get so much walking in. Once I was home, I had quite a few bags. Two of them were from the grocery store, one was from Crate and Barrel, one from Sephora (gift cards for friends - no make up for me!), a bag from City Sports, and the last was from the Container Store (with my 2009 Filofax refill!) - but I didn't need a bag just for that, so it was lumped in with my City Sports stuff.

For lunch I had a sandwich on Arnolds sandwich thins. It was yet again, Buffalo Chicken by Boars Head. Yum. More spinach, one slice of Sargento pepper jack cheese, and yellow mustard. I had some baby carrots (the normal carrots looked really bad at the grocery store today) and some goldfish crackers.
I have been really feeling uninspired lately, and was struggling to come up with an interesting lunch. Sorry everyone.

Ben came home after work with some great things from Whole Foods. He had two Pomegranates, some kiwi fruits, and a whole wheat baggett. We had a lot of fun preparing the pom - but here is a hint. When you are preparing a pomegranate, do not wear your good clothes! We definitely stained our shirts a little bit today! Oh well, it was a lot of fun. Here is the end result:
We also enjoyed some of the baggett with garlic hummus.
I have not had anything officially for dinner yet. I am not sure if I will be having anything else, but will report if I do!

Monday again!?

Hi Everyone -

Well, I never got around to the Blog yesterday! But it was a pretty good Monday - mostly because I knew that I had Tuesday off, and thus did not have a long week ahead of me.

Monday started off with a bowl of Kashi Vive cereal with six ounces of Silk light vanilla soy milk. I really like this Kashi cereal. I like the texture and the flavors - they all work well together. I ate this cereal at 7:30 AM and it kept me full until 12:15 when I had lunch.


For lunch I had a peanut butter & jam sandwich because I did not have time to go to the grocery store on Sunday night. Teddy peanut butter is sooo good, I love it. It really made the sandwich special! I also enjoyed a strawberry Chobani yogurt, and a few Goldfish crackers.

I had a busy day at work, so I'm glad that my lunch was satisfying. It kept me going through out the afternoon. At 3:30 I had a Kashi granola bar which got me through until dinner.

After work Ben and I both went to BSC to work out! It was great to have Ben go with me. We did our weight training together (over half an hour). I also did 25 minutes of the elliptical machine, and Ben biked. After working out, we treated ourselves to the Whole Foods salad bar. Yum.

My salad contained lettuce, broccoli, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, green, orange and yellow peppers, plain tuna, one hard boiled egg, tofu, and sesame noodles with cashew nuts. It was a fantastic combo! The protein helped fill me up.

Oh - and after the salad, I made No Pudge Brownies. I had one last night with one scoop of Byers vanilla bean ice cream. It was fantastic! I had a chocolate craving, and the no pudge brownies were the way to go.

That is a recap of the day.

Sunday in Dobbs

Sunday, Sunday. The sun is out and it is just beautiful outside today! Quite a change from yesterday's rain and dreary skies.

Ben and I woke up around 9:00 this morning. I was able to get Ben to go for a walk with me around the neighborhood - and we walked for about forty minutes. It was a great walk, it was cool and sunny - and the leaves still looked wonderful. We saw a few Japanese Maple trees on our walk, which are some of my favorite trees. There are a lot of hills in town, which Ben and I definitely walked up our share of this morning! I could feel my legs getting a good work out.

After our walk we took Lara to one of our favorite local hang outs - The Dobbs Diner. Yum. It was definitely loud this morning with a lot of families with young kids. We didn't do much talking, but we did a good amount of eating .

I ordered an egg white omelet with broccoli and cheddar cheese. I asked the kitchen to go light on the cheddar cheese - and the result was near perfection! I also had a side of whole wheat toast and turkey bacon. Oh - and the omelet came with home fries which I ate a bit of. Everything was fantastic.

It is 2:30 in the afternoon now, and breakfast is still holding me over!

I'm going to sign off for now to enjoy the last hour or two in Dobbs. I hope everyone is having a relaxing Sunday!

Saturday in the City

Hi All -

Yesterday for breakfast I had half a bagel, grapes and a tangerine. There were also muffins out for breakfast, but I decided to go with the fruit and bagel. Sigh. Lara had the brilliant idea of adding peanut butter to her half of the bagel we split, but it was early, and I was not thinking - but I definitely could have used the peanut butter for an extra bit of protein!

Ben, Lara and I had a great time in the city yesterday! We did not get into the city until about 2:30 or 3pm - we did have a great, leisurely morning and it was well worth it. We started the afternoon at the Morgan Library, which I had always wanted to go to. I was so excited because the Morgan had an exhibition entitled Drawing Babar. I loved reading the Babar stories when I was growing up. This exhibit was so perfect - I enjoyed seeing the creative process that Jean de Brunhoff and later his son, Laurent used in creating the stories that I appreciated so much.

After leaving the land of Babar, we explored a smaller exhibit on John Milton's Paradise Lost. It was so amazing to see some of the manuscript from the 1660s on which Milton wrote the lines that made up Paradise Lost. It makes me want to go back and read more of the poem...

After leaving the Morgan, we walked a couple of blocks to the Ginger Man pub on 37th Street @ Madison. It was 4:30 in the afternoon, and we hadn't had food since breakfast! We were all pretty hungry.

We all decided to start off with a Ginger Man beer, which was pretty good! I drank about half of mine and gave the rest to Ben.

We studied the menu for a long while before making up our minds. I ordered a cup of lentil soup and a baked potato that came with cheddar cheese and bacon. (seriously!?) Ben and I splint the potato - thank goodness. The lentil soup was good, but it definitely had pork or sausage in the soup, which I thought was a little strange. I ate around the meat, and enjoyed the lentils and veggies.

After enjoying our lunch we walked around the city for a while. It had been raining all morning and afternoon, but the weather had started to clear up around 6pm! It is always fun to walk around New York. I am already busy planning my next trip - I have to go to MOMA and the Met soon and perhaps the Museum of Natural History.

I was a bit sad that I did not get to my favorite New York bagel shop - H&H Bagels. Yum. They serve their bagels FRESH and HOT and they are fantastic. I love their everything bagel!

We got back to Dobbs Ferry around 8pm and we all went out to dinner with Ben and Lara's aunt and uncle. It was a really cool restaurant in Hastings - on - Hudson called Maud's Tavern. Ben had a turkey burger, Lara ordered mussels and I enjoyed a garden salad which was fantastic! I actually ate the entire thing, which surprised me. It was one of the best garden salads I have had that I can remember.

We went home and watched the movie Iron Man on Blu-Ray! It was the first Blu-Ray movie I have ever seen, and it was amazing. I felt like the actors were in our living room - as Ben said, it was a little freaky! But soo cool. Around 10:30 I snacked on a package of peanut butter crackers I had left over from our Get out the Vote effort in New Hampshire last weekend. They really hit the spot.

We all got to bed a bit late last night, but I feel really well rested today. We have had a really fun weekend. I am so excited about this week at work - I have work tomorrow and then Tuesday off for Veterans Day. I sort of love having a day off in the middle of the week. I'm going to use it for going to the gym and the market. I plan to make some sort of soup and homemade bread that Ben and I can enjoy for the rest of the week... we shall see how that turns out!

So long for now. Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend, too!

Friday

Hi Everyone -
I don't know about you, but I am so glad that the weekend is finally here!

Yesterday I woke up and had a desire to get to work early so that I could leave a little earlier and get home to pack for New York. I ended up getting into the office at 7:55 and in order to do that, I skipped packing lunch and breakfast for myself...

For breakfast I thought I would try one of Rachel's yogurts. I'm not exactly sure what went on during this taste test - but it didn't go all that well. I had just brushed my teeth before leaving the house, and I was starving when I got to my desk. I opened up the Rachel vanilla chai and dug into it. It did not taste very good at all! The date on the yogurt was November 7.... and I was worried that perhaps the yogurt had already turned bad. I actually think it had a lot more to do with the fact that I had brushed my teeth. Ew. I threw the yogurt out, which was really sad. Instead I went down to the caf and bought an onion bagel. Ugh.

Lunch was a lot better than my breakfast failure. My colleague and I decided to walk down to the college caf that is on our "campus". They have a decent salad bar that is actually fairly priced! I was being really careful to not go over board on my salad selection, because I only had $7 with me. When I got to the check out, I was blown away by the fact that my salad only cost $3.75 - pretty amazing.

In the salad I had plain tuna (instead of the tuna salad they also had at the salad bar which looked like it had quite a bit of mayonnaise) chick peas, broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, croutons, and "Mexican rice" (which had roasted red pepper, black beans and rice mixed together). I used a bit of balsamic vinegar as a dressing. The salad was great except for the cherry tomatoes I had added. I ate one, and the taste was not very good at all, so I did not eat the rest of them.

If I had known that the salad bar would be so affordable, I would have definitely made myself a bigger salad for lunch. I would have added more tuna for protein. (It's too bad the salad bar didn't have hard boiled eggs or egg whites as an option!) After eating the salad I did have, I was still hungry. Unfortunately, I splurged and gave into my baked goods craving... I saw the most amazing M&M cookie on my way out of the college caf - and I just had to have it!

At four in the afternoon, I was hungry again. What I really wanted was a latte from Starbucks. But since I was still at work, I opted for a peanut butter Kashi granola bar. I sort of love these things because they have a good amount of protein and fiber (4g fiber, 7g protein). They keep me full for a long time and there are only 140 calories per bar.


I left work at 4:30 to head home and pack for our weekend trip to New York. I don't know what I was thinking when I packed my clothes, but I realized today that I had nothing that made any sense! Ugh. Oh well. I'll be wandering around New York in my running shoes (that I never do anything other than run in), jeans and I'm not sure what else. A hodgepodge of things will be thrown together, no doubt.

Ok, I have to get going - so I'm going to hit "publish" for now. More later, I'm sure!

Friday Morning

HI All-

I have to apologize for not keeping up with the blog this week. I've been so exhausted after the election... On Wednesday I went to sleep at 7:45 and did not even have dinner!

But to recap Wednesday's food: I had another bowl of organic oats, this time with pumpkin butter and a spoonful of Teddy's peanut butter (wow, I had forgotten how good that stuff is!) and that kept me full until lunch time. For lunch I had another Arnold's sandwich thin with Buffalo Chicken, hummus, mustard and spinach (noticing a trend for the week?) and a snack baggie of 20 goldfish crackers. My Wednesday afternoon snack was a small piece of German Chocolate cake - yum! On Wednesday after lunch, I took a twenty minute walk - and it was leisurely. While I didn't get my heart rate up too much, it was still nice to be outside and getting some fresh air!

Thursday's breakfast was exciting! I had Kashi Vive cereal for the first time! I had a bowl of that with 1% dairy milk. The cereal was great, I can't wait to have it again. It has lots of fiber and protein (and even more when you have it with milk!) I loved it. The cereal has a vanilla and graham cracker flavor to it.

I was barely hungry at 12:15 when it was time for lunch - but once I started preparing my sandwich I realized that I was ready for lunch. I didn't mix things up too much, but just enough to not get sick of my sandwich.... I had the last of the buffalo chicken on an Arnold's sandwich thin... but this time I took advantage of the toaster oven. I toasted the bread, with one slice of Sargento's pepper jack cheese - just enough so that the cheese got melty. Then I put the chicken and spinach on the sandwich and enjoyed. It was super good! I also had cheddar goldfish (shocking!) My afternoon snack was a strawberry Chobani yogurt. And then I enjoyed a "fun size" 1000 Grand candy bar. I realize that I shouldn't have, but it was really good and it certainly hit the spot after a long day at work.

The other thing about yesterday is that even though I had taken the time to pack my gym bag, I wasn't able to get to the gym. We were having car trouble yesterday, and I had to be available to pick Ben up from work if our car was not working.... So, it was not the best time to go to the gym right after work. Thankfully he did get home without a problem.

After work I had a snack of garlic hummus and whole grain baked chips. There weren't very many chips left in the bag (left over from election night!) thank goodness! We did end up ordering pizza (since it was Thursday night!) - we ended up getting pepperoni and green pepper. What a good combo. I had three slices and a glass of light vanilla soy milk for dinner.

Well - it is Friday morning - yay! I am really excited for the weekend to get here. Ben, Lara and I are going down to New York to see family this weekend. It should be a lot of fun, and relaxing.

Hopefully I will be able to update one more time before we hit the road.
Happy Friday everyone!

Election day - nervous eating!?

Oh my goodness - well, it's the day after the election and I am exhausted!! I was so stressed out yesterday that I was expending all of my energy hoping that everything would work, and when I finally heard that Obama had reached 270 - all of the stress left my body! I feel like all will once again been right in the world.

I woke up super early on Tuesday, because I was so excited to start the day - and to get out the door to vote! But before I left to vote, I took the time to make my organic oatmeal - and decided to have breakfast at home. I made two servings (one for Wednesday!) and I used one cup of light vanilla soy milk, and 3/4 cup of water and one cup of oats. The new oatmeal took a little longer than I thought it might, but it was great and worth every moment it took to cook! I put a tablespoon of pumpkin butter, a bit of cinnamon, and a spoonful of almond butter on top of the oats. I had raisins, but forgot to add them!

I got out the door by 7:05 and went to vote. Even though I got to our polling place at 7:10 in the morning, ten minutes after the polls had opened, I stood in line for at least half an hour. It was the first time in my entire life I had to stand in line to vote! How exciting it was. It was the perfect start to a great day.

For lunch I had another Arnold's sandwich thin with Boar's Head buffalo chicken, baby spinach, garlic hummus, and mustard. I also had a snack bag of cheddar goldfish crackers. Yum! The lunch was really good.

Before I actually ate my lunch, I went for a 40 minute walk with two of my colleagues at work. It was such a beautiful day outside! It was in the upper sixties, and I was hot as we went on our "fast walk". It was a great way to get rid of some of my nervous energy!!

After lunch settled, I got back to work for a while. Soon enough, a couple of hours after lunch, I was hungry again. I decided to have the Macintosh apple that was left in my lunch bag. We had bought the apples a couple of weeks ago, but the apple was still fantastic! The perfect afternoon snack. My friend Mara was also hungry - and I introduced her to the Cliff Zbar. I gave her the blueberry one, and she liked it.

Shortly before I left to go home for the day, I ran into a special treat that my friend Jenny had brought to work. It was a pizza cookie! Something I had never heard of. I walked by our coffee pot, and saw this huge baked cookie... I stared at it for a minute, trying to figure out what exactly it was. Then I took the knife and cut myself a little piece to try. Wow, was it good. It was like a huge baked cookie (but really thin, like thin pizza crust) with chocolate frosting over it and lots of things sprinkled on top - including dark M&Ms and peanut butter chunks!! I had to go back upstairs to my office to retrieve my camera, because I thought this deserved a picture. Here it is:

I left work around 4:30, I think... I was soo nervous at that point! I could not wait to get home and see if there was any news being reported about voting, etc. But when I got home, it wasn't quite dark out so I decided to go for a walk in my neighborhood. I ended up walking down to the polling place again. I talked with some of the people holding signs, and by 5pm 60% of the people in our area had already voted! What a turn out - and the polls were still open for three more hours. My walk turned out to be over 20 minutes (one hour of cardio for the day) and it was dark when I got home.

I had to start preparing for the election night family get together. I had snacks from Trader Joe's. Lara was in charge of veggies and she brought an amazing onion dip that she made with plain Greek yogurt - it was awesome! My mom brought the main course - Chicken a la King - a family classic. Here is a picture of the spread we had (before the main course was brought out!) The four of us had so much fun watching the results come in.

Ben and I did not go to sleep until about 2:30 in the morning. Wow. I'm still exhausted just thinking about the long (and happy) day we had yesterday. I am going to bed super early tonight - in hopes to catch up on some sleep!

A case of the Mondays

Hi Everyone:

Sorry I did not get around to posting yesterday. I had a severe case of The Mondays. But, I wanted to let you all know about how the day went - and I will post the pictures later today.

For breakfast I had a bowl of Enviro Kids Organic Peanut Butter Puffs, with a banana and soy milk. It was a really good cereal and it kept me full until lunch. I was a little hungry before Noon yesterday - but I chalked that up to Daylight Saving Time ending on Sunday. At noon it really felt like 1pm to me, and that equals a late lunch!

For lunch I had a pretty awesome sandwich. I had Boar's head buffalo chicken on an Arnold's Whole Wheat sandwich thin (only 100 calories!) with garlic hummus, mustard and half a cup of baby spinach. Yum! I also splurged and consumed an amazing bag of homemade / natural potato chips - Route 11 Sour Cream and Chive flavor. Wow, were they good!

My afternoon snack was a new flavor of Chobani - Peach! It's not new to the market, but it was the first time I tried it. It was great!

After work, I went to the gym. I did the ET for 31 minutes with a high resistance (between 7 - 13 the entire time). After the cardio, I did a quick round of weights for 15 minutes. I concentrated on my legs for this session.

After the gym, I went to Trader Joe's for what was supposed to be a quick and small shop to get some supplies for our election party tonight! However, I ended up spending $45 and got a great selection of stuff!

For dinner I made TJ's pot stickers, steamed broccoli and brown rice. Dinner was sooo good, we ate around 8pm and I was starving! Everything on my plate worked really well together - a great combo!

Around 9pm I finally satisfied the ice cream craving I had been suffering from for days. I had two scoops of Breyers vanilla bean with light chocolate syrup on top! It was perfect.

Ok, that was a quick re-cap of yesterday's food.

Article from New York Times

Hi All -

I don't know about you, but I am having a case of "The Mondays" and I don't think the time change has helped.

But for a post - lunch read, I wanted to share this cool article from the New York Times and Jon Meacham:

Essay
How to Read Like a President
By JON MEACHAM
Published: November 2, 2008
You can tell a lot about a presidential candidate by the books he reads, or says he reads.

Enjoy! I will post more tonight about food and exercise!

Sunday, Nov. 2

Today is Sunday.
Normally, I love Sundays. Sunday is one of my favorite days of the week. My political shows are on, The Sunday New York Times is for sale, I can run outside during daylight, and it's overall a relaxing day.

However, this Sunday was a crazy day as we were volunteering to "Get out the Vote" in New Hampshire. During this really long day, I hate to say food was not my #1 priority. I had a free bagel in the morning (plain - no butter, no cream cheese - just a grab and go!), and ended the day with a McDonald's cheeseburger and a few french fries (ugh). After a long day of walking around in neighborhoods, the burger did taste pretty good!

By the time we were back home, I was ready to get the eating back on track. For dinner, I had another bowl of the Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper soup. This time I added a small handfull of low fat mozzarella cheese, and ate the soup with a slice of the Arnold's high fiber bread.

An hour later, Ben made Annie's mac & cheese, and I had a small bit of that as well.

After getting back from our day trip to New Hampshire, we were sort of productive. Ben took the air conditioner out of our bedroom window - which might let our room be a little warmer to sleep in tonight! I did two loads of laundry, so I can start off the week on a good note. I had to dig around a lot in my clothes to find my running socks.... I had managed to lose almost all of them. I am so excited that I found (and washed!) all of the socks. I am ready to hit the gym after work tomorrow - I need my gym time tomorrow!

For a quick FYI about running socks! If you have problems with blisters (which I do) here is one simple way to remidy the situation... never wear cotton socks when you run! I have about ten pairs of my special running socks that are made of CoolMax material. They keep your feet dry, and usually blister free. I also love socks that are seamless when I am running. I'm very picky when it comes to my socks and running shoes!

OK, well it's 9pm and it would normally feel like 10pm with the clocks going back last night. But after our day - it feels more like 1 AM and I'm heading for bed shortly! I cannot wait to get back on track with eating and exercise tomorrow!

Saturday Re-cap: Lululemon!

Hi All -

Wow, it is Sunday evening and I cannot believe the weekend is over. It was sort of an up and down weekend. It was super busy, and I am still trying to get more things done now.

Saturday started out well. I woke up pretty early and started the day off on a good foot. I made an egg white omelet and a piece of Arnold's high fiber bread and consumed a couple of cups of coffee. Ben and I went for a nice walk around the neighborhood. It was pretty warm out - around 60 degrees (not bad for November 1st!).

We then took my Volkswagen to the car wash and after that went to the New Balance Outlet in Brighton. Ben got a new pair of his favorite sneakers and I did not find anything that fit my feet well. I have been wearing Sacony running shoes lately.... after ten years of wearing Asics. I still wear my Asics for walking around, and I still love Asics - but after so many years, it was time for my feet to change into a new shoe for running.

On our way back we stopped at the grocery store and I scanned my way through a succuessful shopping trip. I am really excited to try the new Rachel's Yogurt I found. I had read about this stuff on one of the other blogs (I think it was Jenna's - but it was such a long time ago, I can't be positive). The two flavors I could find at the market were Calm: Plum Honey Lavender and Relax: Vanilla Chai . I can't wait to try both of them - and I'll report back when I do. But don't the flavors sound just lovely?? I am so glad (and surprised!) I found them at Stop & Shop!

A few of the other cool things I picked up at the store are:

Arnold's Multigrain Sandwich Thins.
Chobani Strawberry non-fat greek yogurt
Boar's Head buffalo chicken
Silk Light Vanilla Soy Milk
Kashi Vive cereal
Sargento pepper jack cheese
Snyder's of Hanover Multigrain Chips (French Onion)
Raisins
Carrots
Spinach
Cucumber

Soon after we got home from the market, I had to start getting ready for our evening downtown. We had decided to go to the Pru for some shopping.... We first went to a sports bar at Copley so we could enjoy the Iowa football game - unfortunately, they ended up losing to Illinois. Ugh.

We were both especially excited to go to the grand opening of lululemon! It was the store's grand opening weekend at the Prudential Mall. We got to the store after the football game, just in time for cupcakes and coco! We ran out of time at the store, so I have to go back soon to find myself a new pair of yoga pants... I can't wait! I did get a new top for running, and a couple of other things. Lululemon is a super fun store to shop in - I am glad we have one at the Pru now! Oh - and by the way, the cupcakes at Lululemon were tiny and amazing! I had a vanilla cupcake when I first went into the store, and when I left with my purchase, I saw a red velvet cupcake and could not resist it! They were both amazing. Yum.

Ben and I then went to Logan airport to pick up Ben's cousin Lara. She was returning from a two month internship in Washington, DC. It is great to have her back in Boston! We picked her up, and took her back to her new apartment. Soon enough we realized that it was 8:30, and none of us had eaten dinner! We decided to order from Cafe Nicholas. We decided to order a medium Margherita pizza, a garden salad and mozzorella sticks!! I cannot remember the last time I had a mozzorella stick - but I have to say, they were sooo good! The pizza was amazing - with a lot of fresh basil and great mozzorella cheese. We also enjoyed a glass of pinot noir, that went really well with our dinner. I also drank three glasses of water - because I had been really slacking on my water in take for the entire day, and it was catching up with me.

It was a late night, and Ben and I ended up getting home around 1AM - and then we realized it was the end of Daylight Saving Time - and it was really just midnight.... We were still exhausted though!