Thursday, November 13, 2008

Sweat it out!

OMG, can I just say how much I love the gym?!!!! I started the morning with the same stomach ache, trying to stay optimistic but the same symptoms of the last few days made me feel a little hopeless. I was just going through the motions, ate my breakfast, a snack and contemplated skipping the gym. Well, I'm so happy that I actually went, because I totally sweated out whatever bluh feeling I've had all week! I felt strong, I felt energized, I was totally back to my normal self. It felt SO GOOD! Anyways, let's go back to that breakfast and snacks...

BREAKFAST

I put this concoction together last night: pumpkin pie yogurt :D



This bowl had about 3/4 c of TJ's nonfat yogurt, 1/3 c pumpkin, 1/2 banana, 1 tablespoon of pumpkin butter and some Erin Baker's peanut butter granola. Oh, and a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice :) Not bad! I missed the chocolate and nuts in my breakfast but I wanted to start the morning on a fresher note.

After finishing this bowl I wanted to continue munching, so I grabbed 1/2 serving of reduced fat wheat thins (actually it's a different organic brand but it tastes the same and I forget the name of the brand) with 1/2 packet of Barney Butter. I forgot to take a picture right away, so here is a shot mid-way through eating :)



SNACK

As always I got the urge for chocolate, so I immediately grabbed the closest thing I could find: a zbar. Carrot sticks and cottage cheese (my originally planned snack) just wouldn't do it today.



This is the honey graham kind... it was my first time trying it. I liked it! I can't quite make-up my mind about zbars. The first time I tried one (the fudge brownie flavor) I thought it was the best thing ever and ordered 2 huge boxes of them on Amazon.com. Many months later I'm still working on my second box, because I never really crave these things (and I keep buying other bars to try out). I like them when I eat them, but for some reason the idea of one never appeals to me. I think the brownie kind is still my favorite, but this definitely was a good one.

WORKOUT

As mentioned at the beginning of the post, my workout kicked butt! I was just so happy the entire time; I could not believe what a difference it was making.

I originally was going to skip it altogether, then I thought about just going to the gym to take a shower and straighten my hair to make myself feel more refreshed. Finally I decided since I was already there, there is no reason not to jump on a treadmill and just do my 3 mile run. Fastforward to the end: I ran for 40 minutes (~ 4.5 miles) and did 20 minutes on the elliptical. I was feeling amazing! I could have kept going, but unfortunately I had to go back to work :(

LUNCH

As mentioned before, we're leaving for NY tomorrow so lunch was a few leftover items... it was very satisfying and perfectly refreshing after my refreshing workout!

The star of my lunch was a smoked salmon/laughing cow and cucumber sandwich on a ww British muffin... and the side dish was simple but super delicious: mixed greens, grape tomatoes, cucumbers + 1 tablespoon of Annie's goddess dressing. Perfect! Here is the sandwich:



And lunch altogether (dressing was mixed after the photo was taken - a dressed salad isn't very photogenic :D )


This lunch was kind of late (around 3:30) but it kept me full for hours. I met up with a new friend after work at Starbucks where I got a vanilla coconut tea (sorry I forgot to take a picture in all the excitement). I sipped on that while we were chatting away about food and boys and I never got hungry until it was time for dinner.

DINNER

They are opening a Chipotle in our building and today was the grand-opening day, where they were giving out free burritos. My husband warned me that we were going weeks ago, so I was mentally prepared (and excited!) about dinner at Chipotle. Well, there was a slight change of plans because this is what was outside of Chipotle today:



Yeah, a HUGE line! This goes waaay back and it was dark and raining. No thank you, I can have it tomorrow, or next week. Man, people really love free food!

We quickly re-evaluated the situation. With me having no second snack and an overall relatively calorie-light day, I agreed to go out for some sushi. Sushi is quite healthy, you just have to watch how much of it you eat, because it definitely adds up. I knew I had some wiggle room and I haven't had sushi in forever (actually we were planning on having it tomorrow in NY, but we'll figure something else out). We tried a new place (new for us), Fin's Sushi in Kenmore Square.

This place was great!!! We have a really nice sushi restaurant across the street from our building and hardly ever venture out to other ones, but I'm so glad we did today. It was small, but very modern and the sushi was super fresh. It is also BYOB, which we didn't know today but will be cool for future visits. I could have eaten 3 times as much, but I was still in a really great healthy mentality so I kept my portions reasonable.

I started with some seaweed salad:



This is the whole dish... I probably ate 3/4 of it. I kind of picked at it throughout dinner.

And this is the sushi we ordered for the 2 of us:



Mine is the alaskan roll (salmon/cucumber/avocado), 1 tuna nigiri, 1 unagi nigiri and 2 yellowtail nigiri. I tried one of my husband's spicy tuna maki for exchange of 1 alaskan maki and then my husband didn't eat his salmon nigiri, so I had to help him out with it :) It was soooo delicious. I missed sushi!!

When we got home I wanted dessert so I had another raspberry brownie. I'm sure you guys are sick of seeing these but I'm still not sick of eating them :) Don't worry, there are only 2 left and I think my husband will take care of them :D



And I finished off my day of eats with some hazelnuts:



There was another handful after these, but I put them away now and I'm very satisfied. What a great day!

Btw, I probably won't be able to blog until Sunday night, but I'll try to take lots of food pics when I'm in NY. There should definitely be some good eats there!

Thank you all again for your nice comments. You guys are the best!

8 comments:

Unknown said...

i need to try some seaweed salad!! and that raspberry brownie will never get old :)

Unknown said...

So good to see you last night and chat! I ended up with sushi too but I have a feeling I ate a bit more than you...that place looks great though - Mike and I will have to try! Have a great time in NYC and cant wait to hear about it

Elina said...

Yeah Katie, I think all that sushi talk got me in the mood :) It definitely hit the spot! We should hang out again soon!!

Anonymous said...

Pumpkin pie yogurt sounds so good! I love all things pumpkin :) That line outside of Chipotle is insane!

Happy Friday! I hope you don't mind if I add you to my blogroll?

Anonymous said...

I just found your blog and that raspberry brownie will keep me around! :)

RunToTheFinish said...

I think working out when I'm sick is like the best thing every.. which is so twisted, but I swear I get well faster.

Not a chiptole fan, so thank goodness that's one temptation that doesn't get me.

Anonymous said...

Love that breakfast! Have fun in NY!

Anonymous said...

Oh wow, that is one line up!

But great job at the gym!