Catch-up

Good morning!

Here’s a little catch-up on what I’ve been chowing.  I’ve been sticking to the basics, but jazzing things up in my own way…

Monday night dinner:

Doesn’t get much more basic than that! Whole wheat angel hair with red sauce.  I wasn’t feelin’ any sides.

Tuesday breakfast:

Finished off the Golden Grahams, Sue!!! haha

These were left over from the Copper trip a couple weekends back and for some reason they sounded perfect on Tuesday.  I know this cereal doesn’t offer much nutritionally, but gosh I forgot how good they tasted…

Tuesday lunch:

Tuna, colby jack and spinach wrap—heated up so the cheese was all gooey.  This was fabulous!  I had chips and salsa (my addiction) and  a pickle on the side and it reminded me of a lunch my mom would make for me.  Hi mom!

Tuesday dinner (we had a guest!):

My favorite salmon recipe with some roasted veggies and couscous.  If yo haven’t tried this recipe before—TRY IT!  I swear you guys, this is my go-to salmon recipe and it turns out great every time.  Also it’s incredibly simple and you probably have all of the ingredients for the marinade on hand.

For the veggies, I chopped them up ahead of time and soacked them in  balsamic/olive oil/dried oregano.

Then let them cook for about an hour at 400.  These turned out really good!

We also had some wine…

Highly recommmend this one!  It had a strong almost chocolatey taste that was really delicious.  I think it was a zinfandel, merlot, syrah blend.  I’ll definitely be looking for this in the future!

Last but not least, this morning’s breakfast:

Oats in the TJ’s Almond butter jar.  Need I say more?

I’m off for another day of madness.  I can’t believe I only have 2 more days of school before spring break starts.  The week pretty much flew by! Yesterday I went for a pain-free 3-miler that felt really good so I’m super excited for my race.  I think I’ll do another short run today and my friend Jon told me I should at least do a mile on Saturday to keep the legs fresh.  I guess I’ll just play it by ear…

Happy Thursday!

Much-needed relaxation

I feel like it’s been forever since I had a chance to just sit around for a few hours! Our house guests are all gone so today was the first in about a week that I just relaxed without any plans for the day… and it was nice!  Not to say that I didn’t have a blast with our friends (I felt like I was on vacation all week!), but I’m happy to have things settle down a bit too.

I had brunch at the best spot in town–The Egg and I. They’ve got a really non-traditional menu and everything I’ve tried has been awesome.  Think less greasy fare, more unique veggies and whole grains.  Today I had the Raisin French Toast.

It was really good!  Perfect little Saturday morning… Other things on the menu I would recommend:

• Veggie Benedict
• Raspberry Granola Pancake
• Mediterranean Crepe Eggs

After breakfast we headed over to the Bux to sit outside in the AMAZING weather.  It was 60 and sunny so I went with an iced chai–I haven’t had one of these ages and it hit the spot!

I also got to SKYPE with my parents and nephew today!!!!!! It was so nice to see their faces.  And Tristan is getting so big!  Starbucks was  a weird location to be having a conversation with them, but it was unplanned so I rolled with it.  Seriously made my day!

Me attempting to study…

Let’s just say I wasn’t as productive as I had hoped.  There’s always tomorrow right?

After some spinning at the gym it was already close to 6 so I came home to make dinner.  Where did this day go?!  I was really craving a wrap for some reason so I made this grilled turkey and muenster and loaded on the vegetables.

Ah yes, perfect.  Had some chips and salsa on the side too.  Is it weird that we currently have 4 different jars of salsa in our fridge?  We’re salsa people I guess…

So I rented Saw VI tonight because as sad as it is, I really like these movies.  I know I know, they’re sick and twisted!  Red Box was fresh out of Time Traveler’s Wife so this was the next best thing!  Talk about a genre switch.

Feels like Sunday.  And I’m so happy it’s not!  See you in the AM.

Need some serious “me time”

Afternoon post??? Yes I did.

Here’s what I snacked on mid-morning:

and

And some green ginger tea because it’s FREEZING today!  The weather is starting to remind me of back home in Michigan.  We’re actually getting a decent amount of snow.  Winter does happen here after all…

Lunch

I packed both my own and Jessica’s lunch today… I’m such a good wifey! Ended up having enough time to come home to eat which explains the plate.  I made tuna wraps with spinach, sundried tomato, avocado, and dijon mustard.  Pretty delicious combo if you ask me.  Oh, and a pink lady (the best!) apple too.

I’ve decided that me having to work tomorrow is a blessing in disguise. It forces me to stay in G-town for the WHOLE weekend (no skiing, no roadtrips to Denver or Boulder…nada).  I am in NEED of some “me time”. Seriously.  I’ve been pushing certain things to the side in favor of school/work/fun for awhile so I can’t wait to just chill for a couple of days.

And because I’m semi-obsessed with lists (don’t judge):

5 ME things to do this weekend:

1. Wake up without an alarm on Saturday morning and make a really good breakfast.
2. Bake something
3. Manicure and Facial (no need to pay someone, these I’m doing myself!)
4. Long run (9 miler)
5. See Valentine’s Day!

5 “not-so-ME, but important nonetheless” things to do this weekend:

1. Study biochem like it’s my job
2. Clean the apartment—really, really well.  We have 3 different out-of-town guests that will be in and out of our place next week!!
3. Hit up Target for some necessities (and consequently, spend money on things I don’t need)
4. Laundry
5. Catch up phone calls.  I’ve been bad about this lately!

I heart my job.

Lunch:

Tuna wrap w/olives, spring mix, laughing cow cheese.

Jazz apple

Today was a faaaaaaabulous day!! Classes were interesting, played a really good game of racquetball, taught boot camp, and gave some tours of the rec center to a group who is interested in starting to work out. Can I just say that I really love my job?  Like a lot.   There were a ton of great questions asked tonight both nutrition and fitness related and I swear I could have went on and on with this group… Wonderful bunch of ladies!

And I’m eating this lovely plate of  goodies as I type:

Leftover taco dip from the superbowl party (I think it’s finally gone, which is a good thing), rice and beans, peach salsa, olives and blue chips.  The salsa that we’ve been buying lately is this brand:

It. is. amazing.

I’m off to Starbucks to study the rest of the night.  Lot’s of things to get done!!

12 hour shift

So glad to be home after such a long day!  I was gone from 7:30am-7:30pm with not much down time so this was eaten throughout the day in parts… I guess you could say I pulled a 12 hour shift on campus, so I came prepared.

• Veg wrap (hummus, spring mix, tom, avocado, cuke)
• Pink Lady
• Peach CHOBANI
• Cinnamon LARABAR

Dinner consisted of this, except it was the garden herb flavor.  Just had this picture on my computer already and decided to roll with it.  I think I’ve tried them all and Garden Herb is my hands-down fave.

Alexia organic fries were on sale at Whole Foods this weekend so we figured those would go good with the burgers.  So here’s your burger and fries, made slightly more healthy? May not look like it, but this was really good.  And it was exactly what I was craving.

Day’s worth of meals… not too hard to do.  I think I can handle this.

As far as exercise today, I did 2.5 m on the treadmill before I needed to stop because I felt like my stomach was about to burst open!!!!!! May or may not have had too much fiber today… although it’s not much different from what I usually take in.  So confusing!

Anyways, it was fine by me because I taught boot camp and full body fit and there was enough cardio involved to get me a decent sweat overall.

Biochem time! Lot’s of  fun.  See you for breakfast!

A cereal kinda day

I’m back!

Thanks for all of the lovely comments on my new page… I’ve been meaning to jazz up the whole blog for awhile now, but by the time I post and catch up on my Reader, I feel like I’m on the computer too long and need a break!  Eventually I’ll have more recipes, workouts and pictures up, just not yet! On to breakfast…

This is the new Nature’s Path Optimum Power cereal I was talking about the other day… It’s the Blueberry Cinnamon flavor and I LOVE it! There are actually freeze-dried blueberries in it.  Here’s the ingredients:

Organic wheat bran, organic evaporated cane juice, organic whole wheat meal, organic soy flour, organic flax, organic puffed Kamut®*, organic flaxseeds, organic barley malt extract, organic soy fiber, organic oat bran, organic rice bran extract, organic freeze-dried blueberries, sea salt, organic cinnamon, calcium carbonate, folic acid, cyanocobalamin (vitamin B-12), tocopherols (natural vitamin E) added to enhance freshness.

Not too shabby, and it kept me full all morning.  I loved how there were so many different textures and shapes.  I would buy this stuff again for sure!
It was just a cereal kinda day.

After my internship I had this packed lunch in a cubicle in the library.  I never seem to learn that these wraps don’t hold filling well!  Regardless, it was still yummy, just a little messy.  Good thing I brought a fork!
Inside of this mess of a wrap:

• Black beans
• Mango
• Spinach
• Red onion
• Goddess dressing and Parm. cheese

Delish!

The honey Oikos was delicious as well, but had more honey than I needed.  Way too much in fact.  This is what was left at the bottom of the container after I finished it:

Yikes! No wonder why there’s 17 grams of sugar in this bad boy… However, I didn’t really mind because it was on the bottom so you could control how much you added.  I really loved the Greek yogurt/honey combo too so I would buy this one again!  Another Oikos winner!

After a fantastic workout (thank you, BodyStep!) I came home and showered, then made this early dinner because I was starving!

That’s right, more pesto!  This was a grilled sandwich with a packet of salmon, pesto, tomato, and pepper jack cheese. I wish it was bigger because I was sad when it was gone.  I absolutely love pepper jack  and I think that it was the best part! I’m telling you, pesto goes good on SO many things. I still have a little bit more left…

I snacked on a mix of raisins, walnuts and chocolate chips before step and I’ll probably be having another snack sometime soon because I’m still a little bit hungry.

This is random, but what are your thoughts on the Biggest Loser?  We’re having a debate in one of my classes, so I would like to hear your opinions!

Spring-a-Ling-a-Ding

Happy Friday night everyone!

I hope you all had a fantastic day! SO happy it’s the weekend!

Breakfast was the last of my Whole Wheat Yogurt Pancakes with AB & J.  They held me over SO much better today! I’m not sure if it’s because I worked out later on in the morning (seems to suppress my appetite), or because I used extra almond butter but it did the trick.

I pulled out a Blueberry Oikos too, but I was full by the time I finished this so I ate it mid-morning instead…

Unfortunately, I have to admit that I didn’t care for this yogurt nearly as much as the vanilla flavor.  It was overly sweetened for my taste and the thickness just wasn’t there.  Also, I’m not sure if it was just me, but there seemed to be less in the container?  Sorry, SF but I have to be honest and I wouldn’t buy this flavor again.

I’m excited to try the plain flavor because I seem to like plain yogurt better than sweetened varieties.  I think I’ll be using it in my lunch tomorrow…

So between classes, I ate a packed sandwich while working on a presentation.  I didn’t get a picture because there was people all over and I was shy:-). I can tell you that it was a combo that you’ve seen on here before…hummus (tons!), spinach, red bell pepper, and jalapenos on whole wheat.  I just love it!

I practiced doing a sub-maximal exercise test with a few people from my Health/Exercise Leadership Skills class too.  We have to perform this on a partner for our final exam and I’m actually really nervous!!

The test involves progressively increasing intensity on a cycle ergometer and taking blood pressure and heart rate at set intervals.  Then we plug the numbers into equations and do all kinds of fun stuff…

Anyways, when I was finally done for the day, I snacked on a bowl of Great Grains (all gone now…) and a handful of carrots before Nichole and I picked up some basics from the grocery store.

Then, my room mates cooked an awesome dinner!  I present to you, Turkey Portabello Wraps:

Saute cubed turkey and mushrooms in a skillet like this:

Then roll up in a wrap with mayo, diced tomatoes, spinach, and mozzarella cheese!  We used these wraps tonight:

Inspired by a restaurant back home that we all used to go to…these are so delicious!  I’m still hungry but I haven’t decided what else I want yet LOL… Maybe ice cream?  I’ve been thinking about some good quality ice cream lately… Since it’s the first day of Spring, why not?

Enjoy your night!