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!

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!

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!

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.

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.

Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!
I was up and at 'em super early this morning. I got to the office at 7:35 this morning - whoo hoo! I wanted to get to work really early so that I could leave work early, and hopefully miss the horrible Halloween rush hour traffic. Have you ever realized that traffic after work on Halloween is the absolute worst ever!? It is seriously up there with the Wednesday before Thanksgiving if you ask me!

Today I am really tired, and when that happens I usually do not eat well. I guess I will not be too upset about it, since it is Halloween!

This morning I bought a bagel from the caf this morning at 8:30. It was good, and I had not prepared oats last night, so it was one of my only choices..... ugh. But it was good - even though it was my second bagel of the week!

The bagel kept me full for a long time! At 12:15 I went for a lovely walk. It was only about a twenty minute walk, but it was so beautiful out (maybe 60 degrees and a cloudless blue sky!) and I was just thrilled to be outside for a bit. My friend Anne went with me and we had a nice talk during the walk.

I did not end up having lunch until around 1:30 and I could not believe that I was able to wait that long! I had a great cup of soup from Trader Joe's. It was their Organic Tomato & Roasted Red Pepper Soup. I was not sure if I would like it or not - but it was sooo good! I am thrilled that the soup is low sodium, as well. To go along with the soup I had a piece of cucumber, a 'normal' sized carrot and a piece of french bread to dip in the soup. (By the way, I fully admit that the lunch pictures today are horrible looking - my apologies!)

So, to celebrate Halloween I totally enjoyed a few pieces of candy. After lunch I had a "fun sized" Snickers and two Starbursts. I was not able to leave at 3:30, as I was planning but was still able to get out at 4pm. The highway was a total parking lot by that time, of course! But I still got home in thirty minutes.... not too bad. I was starving when I got home, so I made a big cup of tea which kept me satisfied for a while.

I am so exhausted and as I'm re-capping my food for the day, I can see that my usual "tired eating" trend came true again today. When I'm tired, I eat carbs! Tonight for dinner, I made homemade pizza. (Pictures to come later!) We have only had a couple of trick or treaters tonight - and Ben and I have definitely snacked on a few pieces of candy while we are waiting for the door bell to ring!!

I hope you are all having a spooky Halloween and have a great weekend - I'll post more tomorrow!

Monday: fast walk, run, and food!

I hope everyone had a good Monday - I know a few friends that had a "case of the Mondays" but hopefully most of us had a good day!

I got off to a super early start. I was able to get up out of bed at 6:25 this morning. I was sad to see that it was still dark when my alarm went off at 6:15! After my shower, I noticed that my cell phone had a new text message - and oh of course, it was the T telling me that my train to South Station was running twenty five minutes late! UGH. At that moment I decided to drive to work, since I could not be late today! After getting ready, making and packing lunch I left the house at 7:15 this morning and got to work at 7:40! It was a great drive.

I had a productive morning, and did not end up getting to breakfast until 9:30 when I had half a cup of coffee with soy milk and a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios with soy milk. What a yummy breakfast! We do not usually have HN Cheerios - but they are Ben's parent's favorites, and I'm happy to have them!

At lunch I took one of my "fast walks" with my friend Katherine. We walked our route "all the way" ... everyone at work thinks that if you walk the entire route it is three miles. However, on our walk today, Katherine and I were discussing if we actually thought it was three miles or not. We both think it is probably a little less - but probably still 2 1/2 miles. We walked for 40 minutes, so it was a good workout. We were hot when we got back inside - it was a beautiful day, probably near 70 degrees.

I was happy that I walked before I ate lunch, because it made everything I

had brought to work taste even better.
I did not have a super healthy lunch, I was sort of at another loss. But I made a peanut butter and preserves sandwich on Arnold's high fiber bread.




For snacks I had green pepper slices, roasted red pepper hummus, and eight honey wheat pretzel sticks. It was a great lunch!
For some reason, by the afternoon I was feeling like I was snacking a lot! Which is sort of strange, because I only had two snacks.... At 2:30 I had a handful of trail mix that had almonds, raisins, cashews, and a couple of small pieces of dark chocolate.

At 4pm I had a strawberry Chobani... for some reason, I forgot to take a picture of that - but by now you probably know what that looks like! Today for a brief moment, as I was eating the yogurt, I studied the nutritional info on the strawberry Chobani. It has 140 calories, 20 g carbs, and 14 g of protein! Of course, it's fat free. I was telling my friend Nicole today, that it is sort of my new miracle food!

Because I got to work so early, I was able to leave work by 4:15 this afternoon - woo-hoo!! I was sooo excited to get to leave in the afternoon instead of the evening! I got to the gym by 4:45 and was running into the gym, when all of the sudden I realized that I forgot my RUNNING SHOES!!!! I went back to the car, to see if I had an extra pair of asics in the car.... and I did not!

I got back in the car, and started driving home. I was so annoyed with myself for forgetting my sneakers. I was so sad to not be able to get to the gym. But by the time I got home, I was newly inspired. I changed into my new running clothes, and hit the sidewalk. I did a half hour run through my neighborhood. It was GREAT! After a half an hour, Ben and his parents had returned from an afternoon adventure in downtown Boston. I was able to get his parents to walk with me for another half an hour, so I was walking/running for a total of one hour. I felt like I had accomplished a good work out!

For dinner we ordered Thai food. Our Thai place in Newton Centre is now under new management. The food was still good, but my tofu was not quite as crispy as it was the time before. But we are looking forward to the new menu that is coming out next week.... Fingers crossed that it will still be amazing!

I had tofu pad thai, a chicken dish and some of a fresh spring roll with shrimp. Oh, my one sad point with the new management is that they no longer offer Jasmine rice... it's just brown rice or white rice. But at least brown rice is an option still. Dinner was good tonight, and we had a fun time being together.

Ok, I have to sign off for now. I am missing out in the pumpkin carving festivities! I'm going to start heating up the oven to make pumpkin seeds - yum!

So, I'll catch you all tomorrow - have a great rest of your Monday evening!!

Friday - meals on the go!

Thank goodness for lunch time. I started getting hungry at 11:30 this morning, so I was pleased when lunch time arrived!

This morning I made my weekly trip over to Bread & Chocolate to celebrate it being Friday morning! I was happy to see Eunice when I walked in. Today I ordered an apple sauce / cranberry muffin and it was wonderful! I also had a medium coffee with soy milk. Both things really hit the spot. I had consumed most of the coffee by the time I got to work, but still had a little bit to enjoy with my muffin. I really love soy milk in my coffee - it adds just a little bit of sweetness without being too much, and without having to add sugar.

For this morning's picture of the muffin, I did something a little weird. I put my cell phone next to the muffin to give you some idea of the size of the objects. One of the many things I love about Bread & Chocolate is the portions of their items! I am so happy that someone makes muffins the size that muffins are actually supposed to be! This way I do not have to feel guilty for having a muffin for breakfast once a week. It is the perfect size, and keeps me going until lunch time.

I could tell it was Friday this morning because it was hard to get out of bed and get the day started. I was exhausted! Ben and I went to a concert last night, so we were home late and I did not have time to prepare anything for lunch ahead of time. Thankfully, I had some emergency frozen lunches in the freezer - and I grabbed one this morning before I left the house.

Today's lunch was something I had never tried before. It was a Lean Cuisine Southwest-Style Chicken Panini. I rarely eat frozen things, because there is often a very high sodium content in meals that are frozen (have you ever checked the nutritional contents on one of those boxes??) But I do like having a couple in the house for the days that I cannot think of something for lunch, or do not have time to make something...

The panini was actually very good! The sandwich had cheese, chicken, peppers, tomato, onions and was on sourdough (my favorite bread ever!). Here are some pictures:

The nutritional information is as follows:

330 calories

7 grams fat (2 saturated, 2 poly, 2 mono)

35 mg Cholesterol (from the chicken and cheese)

750 mg sodium (30% of your RDA!)

44 g Carb (5 g fiber!)

22 g Protein

30% RDA Calcium (thanks to the cheese!)

Besides the sodium content, I think it's over all not a bad lunch on a rare occasion. The protein definitely helped to fill me up. The sandwich tasted great, and "grilled" up nicely in the microwave.

I have an apple, Chobani and a Larabar for later... Will post more tonight and let you know what snacks I actually ended up having!

Thursday

Today was a pretty hectic morning in our house! I had to drive to work today, so that I could drop Daisy off at the vet. (she is being spay today!! but our wonderful vet called at 12:30 to let us know that she is out of surgery and that everything went very well - we get to pick her up tomorrow afternoon!) So I was running around, trying to pack lunch, get Daisy in her carrier (she totally knew something was up!) and with all of my self-imposed madness, I forgot to grab my morning coffee.

Thankfully things seemed to turn around. On my way to work from the Vet's, I saw a Dunkin' Donuts that had easy parking and was able to grab a spot and go in for a coffee. Thank goodness! I don't know if I would have survived the day without a little coffee!

Over all, breakfast was a little disappointing. I saw an everything bagel while I was at Dunkin' Donuts, and it was calling my name. But I decided to be good and stick with my morning plan... which was oatmeal and almond butter. Unfortunately, I was trying a rather new oatmeal from TJ's and I did not like it at all. I will have to report back later today to let you know which oatmeal it was.... will have to check the box to be sure. But it was so dissapointing!

Thankfully the oatmeal kept me full until lunch. What I had packed for my mid-day meal was so much better than breakfast! I had some baby carrots, roasted red pepper hummus and a salmon salad sandwich on Arnold's high fiber bread - and a few Kashi crackers. YUM.

Lunch was fantastic and really filling. I am wondering if I will even need my Chobani yogurt for an afternoon snack.

I hope you are all having a great day and I will post more later about dinner, etc.

Happy Thursday everyone!

Monday Night Football - and a day of food

Hi Everyone:

I hope you all survived Monday! My morning started off a bit "off" as I waited for the commuter rail for an extra ten minutes, and over all the train was about 20 minutes late to South Station - which made me over 25 minutes late to work - not a great way to start off the week!

While I was on the train, I was starving. Thankfully I had a Zbar with me - so I ate that while on the train. When I got to work, I did not have the rest of my breakfast right away. But around 9:45 Monday morning, I fixed my TJ's blueberry oatmeal. It was quite good - and because I had the Zbar earlier in the morning, I didn't add anything to the oatmeal today. I was good until lunch at 1pm!

Lunch on Monday felt more like a picnic, which certainly was fun! I had done a pretty good job of packing my lunch, especially because did NOT pack the night before! I had carrots, Kashi crackers, roasted red pepper hummus, Chobani strawberry yogurt, an apple (which I ended up eating later in the day) and a slice of Great Harvest bread prepared with melted low fat string cheese. Between the Chobani, cheese and bread I had a good amount of protein and dairy. It was a fun lunch to eat!

I left work a little after 5PM to meet Ben, my sister and her roommate at South Station where we headed out to Foxboro for Monday Night Football. I was sort of hungry on the car ride. But I had packed a couple of snacks - the one I settled on was a handful of trail mix: raisin, almond, cashew and dark chocolate. It definitely kept me going!

At around 9pm I left my seat at Gillette in search of food / dinner. I walked around for quite a bit because I wanted to get something interesting - and there were a lot of "standard" choices. I ended up getting a burrito, that I shared with Ben.

The burrito had chicken, rice, a small amount of sour cream and cheese (I asked the lady to only add a small amount of both) and salsa. The result was a pretty good burrito - but it obviously didn't compare to Anna's! But I certainly enjoyed it.

We ended up leaving the game just a couple of minutes early... but it certainly did not help us in getting a head start on the traffic! We got to the car at about 11:35 and didn't get home until 2:45 in the morning!! I am so glad I had arranged to take the day off today!

Well, there is a recap on Monday! I'm heading to the gym now - but I will return to talk about food, etc. for today!

Meals on Thursday - and a great new Thai place!

Hi Everyone -

I apologize for being behind this week. But I am trying to fix the situation - last night Ben and I ventured out to the Chestnut Hill Mall to pay a visit to the Apple Store. The airport card in my iBook G4 hasn't worked in a year.... so the only place I can work on the blog is our office which is a pretty small room, cut off from the apartment and it is isolating being in there - so I haven't been keeping up with the blog as much as I want to. It's a long story, but they couldn't help us last night and Ben (the wonderful man that he is!) agreed to dedicate his lunch hour today to getting my computer fixed up! As I type he is meeting with someone at the Genius bar - fingers crossed that they might be able to help us out!! I love my iBook so much, even though it's over six years old. I do NOT want to get a new computer!

So, back to food. On Thursday morning I went back to my old faithful - oatmeal and a tablespoon of almond butter! I also added a plam-full of granola which really made breakfast substantial. I must have been out of practice in preparing the oatmeal - because I didn't end up putting enough water in the mix, and it was super thick. Unfortunately, I didn't realize it until it was too late (and I was already back at my desk!). I did manage to eat most of the mixture, but I was too full to finish all of it. What an unattractive picture!

The one great thing about this breakfast was that it kept me full all morning - unlike Wednesday when I had the scone and then had to have an apple before lunch time!

For lunch Thursday, I did another turkey sandwich on the Great Harvest Honey Wheat bread. I had carrots to go along with it - and a lot of water. This kept me full until 2pm, when I snacked on the Goldfish crackers I had brought in, which I thought would have been part of lunch.

The spinach, mustard and turkey is a great combo. I was meaning to add hummus to the sandwich - but was running out of time this morning!

At 4pm this afternoon I had my Chobani vanilla yogurt, and it was the most amazing afternoon snack yet! It kept me full for hours!

I had the yogurt at 4pm and Ben and I didn't end up having dinner until 8 o'clock, and I was fine until we sat down with our dinner. What a great way to hold off the afternoon / post work munchies!

After work Ben and I went to the mall to see about fixing the computer. On our way over, we stopped in Newton Centre at Thai Thai Kitchen (19 Pelham Street, 617-527-0285, no website yet - sorry guys!). We picked up a menu on the way to the Apple Store and ordered just before we left and picked up the food on our way home.

We ordered fresh rolls with shrimp (fresh lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, mint leaves, rice noodles rolled in rice paper - not fried!! these things are my favorite!), Pad Thai with Tofu, and Pad Himmaphan with Chicken. This dish is sauteed chicken, mushrooms, onions, carrots, scallions, green and red peppers with cashew nuts. It was amazing! Everything we had last night was wonderful. Here is what my plate looked like:

OK, I'm signing off. More later! Hope everyone is having a great Friday.

Thursday

Hi Everyone –
It’s Friday, and I haven’t had a post in a few days. I think I mentioned on Tuesday that Ben has been sick most of the week. He ended up staying home from work on Wednesday, and the school had “fall weekend” and there was no class (or work) on Thursday and Friday of this week. He is feeling a lot better today, but Thursday he was still sick.

I started feeling the cold coming on Thursday morning when I woke up. I went to work that day, getting to the office a little later than normal (9:30 instead of my normal 8am arrival). I think the extra hour of sleep really helped me get through the day though. For Thursday morning’s breakfast I had what has become my “usual” breakfast of the Trader Joe’s heart healthy blueberry oatmeal. The only change up was that instead of adding a half a banana and tablespoon of almond or peanut butter, I added a table spoon of Kashi’s vanilla soy protein powder. I usually use the protein powder for a drink or smoothie, but today I decided to add it to the hot oatmeal… it definitely added some bulk, and kept me full until lunch at 12:30 that afternoon.

For my lunch on Thursday, I enjoyed my first strawberry Chobani yoghurt. It was just as good as the blueberry – a great addition to my usual lunch routine. Along with the Greek yoghurt, I had two tablespoons of TJ’s garlic hummus, eight baby carrots and ten kashi whole wheat crackers. After lunch I went on a twenty minute walk with my colleagues. It was a beautiful fall day in Boston, and we loved every moment of being outside!

At 3pm I had my afternoon snack – a wonderful Lärabar. It was a much needed snack as I was in the middle of a huge annual project and I was in much need of a pick me up! Today’s bar was peanut butter cookie. It has a few more calories than some of the other Lärabar’s but well worth it. Because it’s a very natural food, and there is fat in the bar, it keeps you full for a very long time.

Before I knew it, I was on the train heading home for the day. I had only gone through a handful of Puff’s Plus tissues and a couple of cough drops that I had to get from my friend Katherine (thanks!). Once I got off the train, I went right to CVS to get more tissues and two packages of Ricola cough drops. Right now I am enjoying a Cherry Honey drop. It definitely helps the oh so soar throat, ugh. Ricola drops are definitely my favorite cough drops out there - to read more about them, go here.

Because I was not feeling well, and Ben was still severely under the weather, I decided to order a cheese pizza and a garden salad for dinner. I always make sure to order a garden salad from our local pizzeria when we have pizza for dinner. It helps me eat less cheese and carbs from the pizza. On Thursday night I gave a 1/3 of the salad to Ben, ate the rest of the salad and two pieces of pizza.

For Grey’s Ben and I snacked on light popcorn and seltzer! We both thought this week’s episode was pretty good.