Snacky

Where did the day go? I feel like I was running full speed today and there is still just so much to do! I'm happy to report that despite the craziness I've been able to eat healthy. I was bored a few times and looking for chocolate but there was none in my desk drawer so I stayed away :) Let's start with breakfast...

BREAKFAST

Wow, I actually forgot what I had for breakfast until I looked in my camera. Is that why bloggers take pictures of their food? Haha, jk. We all know that pictures are what make these posts fun :) Anyways, so for breakfast I had a yogurt "parfait": ~3/4 c TJ's nonfat yogurt (all we had left), 1/2 banana, some raisins and Back to Nature granola to go. I received this little sample a while back when I went to Whole Foods and last night I thought it was a good idea to finally give it a go (since I'm out of my favorite trail mix... so sad!). Here is the little packet of the granola:



And here is my yogurt after mixing in this goodness:



This was quite delicious but actually almost too sweet. There was some honey and maybe cane sugar (I forget now) in the granola, that combined with the raisins was a lot of sugar (I know, that's coming from the girl who's obsessed with chocolate, but yes, too sweet even for me!). It did have a very nice almond-y flavor and there were even a few whole almonds in there. Not bad! I wouldn't buy this stuff but I did enjoy it today :D I also had a cup of my usual coffee (with 1 half & half pod & 1 tsp of agave nectar).

About 4 hours later I couldn't decide whether I wanted to eat or work-out. I chose to eat so that I could continue working. Which brings me to...

LUNCH

I had a few slices of the Baker bread left and this inspired my lunch today. Simple but so so good. I am absolutely in love with this bread. When I opened the ziplock bag today with the bread, it just put a smile on my face. I could smell the nuttiness of the bread and I could not wait to assemble today's combo: 2 slices of The Baker bread (you can find the picture of the package here), 2 slices of turkey, 1 light laughing cow wedge + a simple salad of mixed greens, grape tomatoes and 1 tablespoon of Annie's low fat cucumber dressing. I cut the sandwich into bite sized pieces because they were fun to eat last time :)



Mmm, nutty turkey/cheese bites...



I also took a picture of the turkey package we use, but I can't find it... and now it's all gone :( I'm going to have to take another picture next time we buy it. Also, I do not like Annie's low fat cucumber dressing. I used some today because I hate wasting food and cannot throw it away, but actually that's the reason why I started using full fat dressings. They are much better and you can use half as much and be twice as much satisfied for the same amount of calories.

SNACKS - LOTS OF SNACKS

I was kind of in a snacky mood today. I wasn't hungry. Actually both my breakfast and lunch were very satisfying, but I just felt like snacking and since I knew I was still within my calorie range, I let myself indulge in a few extras today. They were all healthy, so we're still good :)

Snack #1: Ellie Krieger's energy bar



Snack #2: a very juicy pear - yum!



Snack #3: 1/2 clif nectar bar. Today I actually liked it - it tastes like a bunch of dried fruit compressed into a bar. I probably wouldn't buy it again though... I'll just eat a bunch of dried fruit, uncompressed next time :D



Immediately after snack #3, came snack #4 because I was looking for a pen in my desk drawer and found these...



That package is so cute! I actually love candy corn and I figured the extra sugar was a great pre-workout snack. Right?

WORKOUT

About 15 minutes after consumption of snacks 3 and 4, I took the Jump & Burn class at my gym. This class is taught by the same instructor I won the personal training session from, the super tough one! I absolutely love her classes and today I liked it especially. Maybe I should eat candy corn every day before a workout?! I had so much energy and felt really strong. The class is basically jump rope interval training. It started by jumping for 3 minutes and then we alternated between 1 minute jumping and 1 minute "off the jump rope" (different lifting moves, pushups, squats, jumping jacks, etc.). The finale of the class is another 3 minutes of jump rope straight. It was awesome! 60 minutes well spent, but I needed a little something extra so I did another 10 minutes or so of abs by myself. Great workout!

DINNER

Dinner was very quick and easy today, no recipe, just a bunch of stuff we had on had thrown together. I made some ww pasta, sauteed some mushrooms, rehydrated sundried tomatoes and grilled some chicken sausage on the George Forman. All that was tossed with organic tomato sauce (I actually was going to use some white wine sauce I made and froze but it looked funky so I tossed it) and dinner was made. It very filling and delicious. The picture of the pasta before I mixed the sauce in looked better, so here it is:



By the way, the chicken sausage I used today was the Whole Foods organic garlic and parmesan chicken sausage. I used 1/2 of it, but I was kind of jelous of my husband who got a whole link :) It was super juicy and delicious! I can't wait to make a sandwich out of one!

And for dessert, I had some Hershey's snacksters...



This is the package:



If you can see on the top of the box it says 0 trans fat, but in the ingredients list it has less than 2% of partially hydrogenated palm oil (i.e. trans fat) so this just shows you how important it is to read labels. It also had some high fructose corn syrup. We bought this stuff a while ago before I cared about any of this natural/whole food business and today I decided to have some as a little treat. These guys are actually super yummy but I will definitely not be buying them again (we still have a bunch which I'll eventually eat, since as mentioned previously I cannot throw away food!).

Today's calorie total: 1637

Oh, I also baked something super yummy (I hope!). I've been dying to make these since I stumbled upon the recipe and that day has finally come. They are cooling so you and I will have to be patient. I'll reveal the treats tomorrow! :D

One more thing (man I talk/write a lot!) I was awarded the Scribbler Badge award by Lara. Thanks Lara, I'm so touched (and a little shocked since really, I'm no writer)! I'll award a few of my favorites tomorrow. It's time to do some work around the house..

I voted!!!

Streak day 2, 9 days until NYC :D I'm kicking butt and taking names :) This is the healthy lifestyle that makes me happy!

I woke up extra early this morning so I could vote before going to work. The first thing I did was turn on the coffee maker! The coffee went with me to the voting place in my to-go cup :) It took a little under an hour to do the voting (there was a huge line outside before the place even opened!) but I was so happy I did it!!!

By the time I got to work, I was starving! I grabbed breakfast on the go, so it was the same old combo: 2 kashi golean waffles with a Barney Butter packet + 1/2 banana. I couldn't wait to bite into it :D


Yesterday at the gym they were trying to have people sign up for a Boxercise class. It was at 5:30 pm today so I swapped my usual lunch workout for the evening one to try this new class out. This meant lunch first, then 2 snacks later (or three...).

Lunch was a simple turkey, dijon mustard, tomato, avocado sandwich on 2 slices of Arnold double fiber bread... with some baby carrots on the side.



Good stuff!



Instead of working out, I did some serious farmers market shopping during lunch. I bought so much stuff I couldn't carry it home :) I left it in the fridge at work to bring it all back tomorrow, when my husband picks me up in the car.

First snack of the day: the rest of the larabar from yesterday (chocolate hazelnut kind) with some tea.



I decided that you really can't taste the hazelnuts and that it tastes just like the regular chocolate larabar. Still good though, just the name is more exciting than the product. Sorry larabar! I still love you!

Second snack: about 2 tablespoons of Sabra original hummus, 1/2 serving of Back to Nature crispy wheats (just like reduced fat wheat thins, but I think they may be more natural... I loooove these) and a pretty large apple. A pretty good combo!



And then a little before the boxing class I was craving almonds, so I had a 100 calorie pack of raw almonds. These are an excellent grab 'n go snack, because the nuts are already pre-portioned for you. You can of course buy a bag of almonds and pre-portion them yourself, but this is just something that's already been done for you. 100 calories worth of almonds is about 15-20 almonds, depending on the size.



And at 5:30pm I got to the Boxercise class... basically a (contact) boxing class. It was ok. It was quite introductory. Only 2 other people showed up; the guy was trying to actually get a paid class going and this was his introduction course to get people to sign up (I didn't know this until the end of class so he wasn't pushing this or anything). Anyways, because it was pretty basic stuff (I'm not a boxer, but I've taken cardio kickboxing classes before so I know "the moves"). I kind of had to work myself extra hard because it was pretty easy to slack off. I basically jump roped in between all the segments (probably did about 15 minutes of solid jump rope overall) and kicked as much as I could. I know I'll be sore tomorrow (in fact I'm sore already) but I won't be back to this class, and certainly won't pay to go. The guy was really nice though (definitely a boxer!) and told me I had a future in boxing. Haha!

On to dinner... I actually wasn't that hungry. Most of the time after a workout I'm not very hungry for a little while (unless I haven't eaten for hours in which case of course I'm starving but that's not because of the workout) but when I got home my husband really wanted me to cook dinner asap. Good thing I planned another "20 minute meal" from Cooking Light. On the menu for the night was "pork vindaloo"... you can find the recipe here. I of course omitted the onions, but otherwise basically followed the recipe. Garam Masala is such an awesome spice. I love indian food, and garam masala is definitely the spice in indian dishes. Yum!

My serving (about 1/4 less rice than was suggested) + some sauteed spinach with garlic:



I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again: those 20 minute meals in Cooking Light (there are 6 of them in every issue) are the best!!!! I've never had a bad one (in fact every one was super delicious!) and they are really easy! When I asked my husband how many smiley faces this recipe earned (that's how we rate them), he said: "Fill the page!" Hehe, yup, he loved it! And so did I!

Onto today's goal accomplishments:
-Calories (1200-1650)- DONE- 1576, including 4 oz of champagne I will have when Obama wins :)
- Exercise - DONE- Boxercise class (about 55 minutes) + walked home (25 minutes)
- Water - DONE - 8 cups and counting...
- F&V (min 5 servings) - DONE - banana, tomato, avocado, baby carrots, 1/2 larabar, apple, spinach, diced tomatoes

Another awesome day! Healthy AND Sane... that's how I like 'em! :D

**edited to add** Go Obama!!!!!



+ I had a handful of pecans:

Stressful day :(

UGH, today was just awful awful. I'm sorry I'm not much fun today. Work was stressful and busy so I never made it to the gym. This in turn stressed me out even more, which led to some bingeing. Boo! Before the final fall, I did have some yummy (and healthy!) food. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking and will resume this blog tomorrow on a more positive note. Hopefully I won't lose any of you...

Breakfast: 2 kashi golean waffles with Barney Butter almond butter packet, 1/2 banana and 1/2 peach + coffee of course. One of my favorite breakfasts!





Pre-workout snack (the workout never happened): 1/2 TJ's European nonfat yogurt, some sliced strawberries and sliced almonds + a few chocolate and pb chips:





Lunch: chicken (from the deli), fresh mozzarella, pesto and roasted red peppers + a simple mixed greens and shredded carrots salad and the rest of the peach from breakfast:





I also finished the brownies (there were 2 left) as my second snack of the day.

And here is dinner: ww pasta, grilled chicken, asparagus, sun dried tomatoes with vodka sauce:



This tasted better than it looks :)

Then was my first dessert for the night: some TJ's chocolate covered edamames:



And then I broke down and ate everything in sight... for hours, while watching the Biggest Loser. Productive I know!

No workout today. So much for making up for this past weekend. Bluh! I'll do better tomorrow. Seriously! Good night!