“Real life is so lame”

And I’m back!

Don’t worry (I know you’re all so worried), I’ve been taking pictures even though I haven’t been around the past couple of days.  Let’s just say getting back on real life time is slightly difficult, and every opportunity that I would normally spend blogging, has been spent napping.  So lame, right? I’ve never been much of a napper because it seems like I either feel worse when I wake up, or I’m just plain crabby that I can’t sleep longer once I’ve fallen asleep in the first place.  This week has been a total exception.

That being said, eating habits have normalized for the most part.  We went to the organic food store that I mentioned the other day (SPROUTS) and stocked up on tons of healthy food to get back on track.

Day 1:

Cinnamon Raisin Ezekial + PB and cinnamon.  This bread is the shiz.

My beloved veggie wrap.  I picked up some house-made artichoke hummus from the store and it was really great… kinda made this wrap.  It’s also nice to have lot’s of different veggies on hand—FYI, avocado=creamy perfection.

Pita pizzas! I love making these because everyone can put whatever they want on top and it’s the perfect amount for one.  I loaded mine with:

• Garlicky red sauce
• Mushrooms (fave pizza topping EVER)
• Marinated kalamata olives
• Red onion
• Spinach
• Lemon Basil (grown by yours truly… thanks, Jessie!)
• Garden veggie cream cheese, mozz & parm

You’ll be seeing these again tomorrow when our friend Becky comes to town!  Wine and pita pizzas are the best for a solid ladies night

Day 2:

Optimum buckwheat waffles in a berry infused flavor of some sort.  These were good!  Waffles aren’t the most filling breakfast for me, but it’s fun to switch things up once in awhile.  Loaded them up with PB and fruit of course for extra staying power.  And real maple syrup for… deliciousness.

Staff appreciation lunch. Free Subway? Yes please.  And I’ve been craving sun chips lately so I was more than happy to see these.  I think the sub had turkey and ham?  It was one of those huge things that you just cut a piece off of.  Very generous of the Rec Center to treat us!

A salad with EVERYTHING but the kitchen sink, topped with Goddess and baked salmon.  Does it get any better than this?  Don’t think so.

Oats in the White Chocolate Wonderful jar + banana & granola. Not only really good, but also portable for mornings like today when I need to be at the gym by 6:30am and I don’t feel like making time to sit down and eat before I leave.  Which blogger actually came up with this idea? Genius.

Mid-day snacks don’t get any better than the green smoothie.  This one had vanilla soy, 1/2 banana, tropical frozen fruit mix, spinach and flax.

Perfect amount to hold me over until I did work on the un-pictured veggie burrito I ate for lunch.  It was a work fundraiser deal and I was sitting with a table of boys that I didn’t feel like explaining my food blogger skillz to.  I’ll photograph the leftover half I eat tomorrow—this thing was HUGE!  So huge, in fact, that I didn’t even need a real dinner, just veggies and hummus for a snack.

So THAT has been my week in food since getting back from vacation.  It’s amazing how wonderful real food tastes after not eating it for a week.  Still working on getting back into the exercise routine, but it’s coming.

SOOOOOOO excited for our  BFF Becky to land in Colorado tomorrow.  She’s visiting us until Tuesday so it will for sure be a great weekend!

There’s a nail-biting basketball game on right now that I need to watch.  K State vs. Xavier, SUPER intense!

Have a great evening and see you in the AM!

Busy busy busy busy

Looks like it was baked in the oven, doesn’t it?  This is just a mix of 1/4 cup grape nuts, 1/4 cup oats, cinnamon and flax, walnuts and raisins, plus vanilla soy milk. Added 1/2 banana after heating.  Delish!

I love the texture combo of mixing the 2 cereals together… Definitely a nice change from the regular oatmeal.

Today should be utterly insane.  I have a stats exam, which I probably didn’t study enough for, class, boot camp and full body fit.  When I come home I need to PACK for the weekend and get super organized for Thursday so we can get out of town at a decent time.

All day Friday I’ll be attending this.  I’m SO excited to learn some new things and get officially certified.

My legs are feeling pretty sore today from my run yesterday so workout is up in the air for today.  Have a great Wednesday!

Feelings on Milk

Good morning!

A nice and comforting, hot bowl of oats is exactly what I wanted this morning.  I mixed 1/3 cut old fashioned oats with 1/4 cup grape nuts to add some different flavor and texture.  I absolutely LOVE grape nuts (buy it in bulk from Sam’s Club), especially hot, so I knew I would like this.

I dumped in some milk, chopped up a banana, and microwaved for about 2 1/2 minutes on high, then topped with a scoop of PB, jelly, and rest of the banana.  Delicious!

Does anyone else feel like milk has gotten a bad rap in the past few years?  I started avoiding it when I moved away to college the first time and I’m not even sure the exact reason… Probably something to do with the antibiotic/hormone scare tactics at first, then I think I just lost my taste for it.

I’m definitely BACK ON the milk train. It’s such a nutritious and tasty food!  Also, it’s nice for when I feel slightly hungry at night time but don’t want to load up on snacks.   For those of you who don’t love the taste, oatmeal/other hot cereals are a great way to sneak some into your diet because the result is creamy oats and you don’t even taste it!  Vanilla soy milk makes the CREAMIEST and frothiest coffee.

Opinions?

Oikos Revew #1

Hello all!

So I took last night off from taking pictures, mainly because I took a nap after classes and when I woke up to make food at around 8:00 pm I was a little out of it!  I had a bean, rice and cheese quesadilla with salsa… pretty boring, but good nonetheless.  I was craving chocolate later on in the night and made some choco oats because I’ve been seeing them all over lately!  They turned out so good, I recreated them this morning, but made some improvements… Here’s the final product:

I don’t have chocolate PB or protein powder, so I used the closest substitute I could find, hot cocoa powder (coffee/mocha flavor).  This is what I went in:

• 2/3 cup of oats (makes a HUGE difference in satiety)
• water/vanilla soy milk
• Cocoa powder (about a tablespoon?)
• Frozen strawberries
• Large scoop AB

This was a great breakfast and held me over for about 5 hours until I broke into my Oikos Vanilla for a snack.

This was WONDERFUL! It’s a close match to Fage, but I think this is the best tasting yogurt I’ve ever had.  The creaminess is unbelievable, and the vanilla flavor is nice and subtle.  I hate super sweet yogurts that are loaded with sugar and I avoid artificial sweeteners so it’s tough to find kinds that I like. This packs 15 grams of protein and only 11 grams of sugar (remember, some of that is naturally occurring) in 110 calories of thick and creamy goodness. There’s slightly less calcium in Greek yogurts, but still a substantial amount as far as I’m concerned.

If I could find these in the grocery store, it would be a staple on my weekly grocery list.  I can’t wait to try the other 3 flavors!  Thanks again, Kristina! Be sure to check out the Stonyfield Farm website.  You can get coupons!

The yogurt held my hunger off until I got home around 1:00 and made this for lunch:

It’s the last of my leftover kidney beans and brown rice, mixed with spinach and goddess dressing.  If you’re wondering about that mess of brown near the top of the plate, let’s just say I got into a fight with the Ezekial tortilla while trying to put this in wrap form.  I love the things, but they’re not super pliable.  I ended up ripping it to pieces and eating it on the side.  Still tasted good though!

Thank goodness the rest of my afternoon is free so I can get a good workout in and maybe get some school stuff done before the weekend.  Later on tonight I’m going to watch a guest lecturer talk about eating disorders for my internship.  Should be pretty interesting… See you after dinner!

What are your favorite ways to use yogurt?

I love Sundays.

It’s true!!!! I know, most people hate that the weekend is over, but I think Sunday is the most relaxing day of the whole week.  I wake up without an alarm (like 7:30) and I throw together some coffee (mmmm….) and usually make a more time-consuming breakfast.

Today’s menu: Whole Wheat Yogurt Pancakes that I found on KERF yesterday.  As soon as I saw the recipe, I knew I had to use it because I’m trying to get rid of some full fat yogurt that my mom bought me.

The texture of these was phenomenal! Kath is a genius in the recipe creation deparartment.

I topped these with a smidge of AB and microwaved frozen strawberries (maple syrup is expensive, and the fake stuff grosses me out). Although you can’t see them, mini choco chips are hiding inside as well!

As far as yesterday goes, here are my eats that I forgot to blog while I was being lazy on the couch all night!

Breakfast was a boring bowl of oats (banana, walnuts, flax, AB) I need some new and interesting toppings!

Lunch was a fabulous sandwich since I went to the store and bought my favorite local hummus!! I was craving this today!  It was very green… Toppings were spinach, cuke, and avocado. I had a Pink Lady too.

Dinner was Tofu with some charred veggies:

Tofu (with olive oil, honey, cinnamon, chili powder, salt)

Veggies: there’s a special place in my heart for caramelized onions:-)

Voila!

This tofu was probably the best I have ever made because it was frozen and I thawed and pressed out the liquid for the second time.  I reccommend doing this with tofu, the texture was perfect!

I also had 2 small bowls of great grains today because the stuff is so darn good! One for a midday snack, and they other while I was watching TV at night because my tummy was growling!

Lastly, I had a great slow but tough workout yesterday.  Sometimes I feel like getting a good burn in, but I want to focus on form which is SO important! I’m telling you guys, it’s better to do less reps with perfect form than the other way around.  Take your time! I did:

• 30 minute walk on inclines 1-10
• Hammer curls, overhead tricep presses
• Lot’s of push ups! (I’m working on upper body strength)
• Overhead shoulder presses on a bosu
• Lat raises
• Planks
• Ab twists

I finished with slow stretching because I’ve been sore all week from hip/hop.  I may take today off, I may not… We’ll see?

Enjoy the last bit of your weekend, I’m off to finish a paper!

Blueberries!

Frozen blueberries have become a permanent staple in my freezer!  I use them in smoothies, oats, yogurt bowls, as topping on pancakes/french toast, or just eat them plain!  They’re so versatile and good for you.  During the winter months it’s the perfect sub for fresh!

Here’s what went into my blueberry oats:

• 1/2 cup oats
• vanilla soy milk (about 1/3 cup)
• frozen blueberries (about 1/3 cup)

Throw in the microwave for 2 minutes, stir well and top with:

• sprinkle of homemade granola
• spoonful of flax
• spoonful of peanut butter

That was such a good way to start off my week!  So many different textures going on in this bowl that it took me awhile to eat and I think I’ll be good for the rest of the morning.

We’re starting hip-hop in aerobics class today so I’m really excited to go! I’ve done it before and like that you get a great workout without even realizing it.  See you later on today, have a great Monday!

Overnight Oats: Success!

Hey there!

Can I just say that I’m REALLY loving the Fage right now?!  I had this snack yesterday between lunch and dinner which soooo hit the spot:

This is Fage with homemade granola and dried cherries…  SO good.  I can’t even begin to describe the creaminess of this yogurt.  And sadly my TJ’s cherries are going fast! I need to start rationing them better! ha ha

I had “breakfast for dinner” which included scrambled eggs with cheese, mushrooms, jalopenos, and a generous amount of  hot sauce, plus an ezekial english muffin (cinn. raisin) with preserves.  Perfect Friday night meal!

For some reason when nothing really sounds appealing, eggs always come to mind… I love em!

After eating dinner, my roommate and I went to the sled dog races down town that I mentioned before and they were really neat to see!  I couldn’t get any good pictures of the dogs because they were moving fast, but they looked so happy and energetic!  Here’s a pic of us girlies:

My nose gets so red when I’m outside in the cold! ha ha

I’m sure the bars were PACKED after the dogs went through, but I’m in what I like to call “money-saving-mode” for my spring break trip.  More on that later…

Back to the title of the post, I tried the overnight oats out for the first time ever this morning and WOW!  These will be repeated many times because they were incredibly creamy and delicious.  I remember seeing these on blogs awhile back but just never thought I would really like them all that much.  The thought of cold oats made me think of sogginess.  After the Fage was purchased, that all turned around…

I mixed 1/2 cup of oats, 1/2 cup vanilla soymilk, and a big scoop ‘o fage in a bowl, covered it, and put in the fridge overnight.  This morning I added a mashed nanner, and topped it with raisins, walnuts, and flax.

It was so refreshing and good… those are the only two words I can think of to describe  it!  I highly recommend trying this.  I figured that if it didn’t end up the way I wanted, I could always toss it in the micro and I’m sure it would be like normal.

I’m off to finish up a couple of school-related tasks, and then maybe a trip to tar-jay to read some magazines, browse the bar aisle, and try on clothes that I won’t buy! ha ha I love Saturdays!

Enjoy the day!