Weekend Recap

I am a bad weekend blogger.  Wish I could say it was because I was so busy with friends and having fun.  Unfortunately I didn’t do much this weekend, Friday night I crashed early and yesterday I was feeling really sick so I skipped a friends birthday dinner and night out for some time in bed.  Not a productive weekend but definitely needed.  I’m hoping that with all my rest I should feel great this week, I’m also hoping this week flies by as quickly as last week did.    It’s sad the weekend’s over but I’m ready to get this last week of February over and done with.  I can’t believe it’s almost March!  Springtime is just around the corner.  And March is my favorite month, I might be a little biased because my birthday is in March. 

So clearly I have a lot to cover since I have not written anything since Thursday.  So let’s get onto the eats.

Friday for breakfast I had a bowl of oats, I decided to finish off my canister used the 3/4 heart healthy portion.  That was really good but super filling.

With cranberries and PB.  So delicious!

This was seriously stick to your ribs good.  3/4 of a cup is great, but it definitely kept me full for hours.  By lunch I was barely even hungry so I just snacked on a cut up gala apple, 2 clementines, some blueberries, kashi crackers, and about 1 tablespoon of pb.

 

I didn’t eat that z bar until about 3:30.

For dinner that night we made a stir-fry of sorts.  I used black beans, green peppers, onions, baby corn, and salsa.  It was a really yummy combo.

After this we headed to the gym, it felt soooooooo good to be back.  I definitely didn’t have my best workout but it was really good.  I was just happy to be back to working out.

I woke up Saturday morning and had some puffins for breakfast.

I ate about 3/4 of this before I was full.  After breakfast I hit up Costco with my dad, I didn’t buy much just some socks, bananas, a new scale, and some seasonings. 

For lunch later on I was craving some of that Panera LF chicken tortilla soup, so I ran out and bought some and ate it at my parents while I waited for Andrew to be done with work for the day.

I got the soup:

And their Classic Garden Salad:

I also ate a piece of the whole wheat baguette, but somehow I didn’t get a picture of it.

After Andrew got out of work we headed to the gym.  I felt like complete crap, I got horribly out of breath barely doing anything and my head was pounding we only wound up staying about 45 minutes before I finally couldn’t take it anymore.  We left and came home.  We had a birthday for a friend to go to, we were supposed to go out to dinner and then out to a bar, but I knew I just needed to stay home.  I made myself a comforting dinner, while Andrew headed out for the birthday festivities.

I had 2.5 ounces of whole wheat Angel Hair pasta, with 1/4 cup of spaghetti sauce.

I ate this and then moped around the house, frustrated that I was missing out, especially because a friend I rarely see was there.  I took a hot shower, took some medicine and laid down, after about 45 minutes I felt super sick and nauseous.  Unfortunately that spaghetti dinner didn’t stay down very long after that, sorry I know that’s TMI.

I fell fast asleep by 9:15 and only briefly woke up when Andrew got home later that night, other then that I slept right up until this morning.  I felt much better but didn’t have any appetite until close to 12.  I decided to have scrambled eggs with green pepper and 3 turkey sausages. 

Because we ate so late in the day I didn’t wind up eating any lunch.  We went to the gym and the girl I was sad I didn’t get to see last night was actually there, after she gave me some grief for not going out last night we worked out together.  She works at the gym as a trainer (not mine though) so I did 20 minutes on the bike while I waited for her to finish up, then she showed me some new arm exercises to do.  She worked me out hard we were both dripping sweat by the end.  Then we did a quick 15 minutes on the elliptical.  I was so surprised by how much I did the elliptical, I’m not a fan of it, but I might have fallen in love with it today.  I was drenched in sweat when we left.

After the gym we ran to the food store to pick up a few items for the week, sorry I didn’t take any pictures of our purchases.  We made tacos tonight with lean ground beef.

I had 2 tacos on a whole wheat toritilla with lettuce, green peppers, salsa, and mexican blend cheese.

Well I’m off to finish my taxes.  Keep your fingers crossed for a big return!

Fat Sandwiches

Hey everyone!  I’m feeling better again, still not 100% but so much closer, I’m excited to go to the gym tomorrow.  I took another night off and I know I needed it, but I’ll be so happy when I’m able to workout at full capacity again.  I’m sure tomorrow is going to be hard but it’s going to be so nice to get back in there.

Today I was in a really good when I got to work.  The sun was shining it was in the 50’s, I was feeling better, and then I got to work, everyone seemed to be in a bad mood today.  The clouds quickly rolled in with drizzles here and there, and the temperature dropped down to 35*.  But it’s Thursday so I was trying not to let everyone else’s moods affect my attitude for the day.  It’s hard trying to be positive when everyone else was so negative, but I know that tomorrow everyone will be happy it’s Friday, as will I.  I mean you get to wear jeans to work tomorrow.  Things don’t get much better then that right? Ha.

So I started out the morning with a blueberry Chobani.  I still think this isn’t the best flavor, I’ll stick to plain, vanilla, and peach from now on, but I’m glad I was able to find this in the store and try it.  I also had 2 clementines on the side.

All I wanted today for lunch was pb on a bagel, I settled for 1/2 a bagel with lots of fruit on the side.  I had grapes, blueberries, and 2 prunes to go along with my peanut buttery bagel.

Yum!

I still don’t have my full appetite back so there was no snacking in between meals, but my mom texted me this afternoon to ask if Andrew and I wanted to go to one of the local diners for dinner.  If you’ve been to or are from NJ you know that diners are every 1/2 mile on the highways.  If you’re from Jersey I’d bet you spent many countless hours at a table in a diner, just drinking coffee or eating pork roll, egg, and cheese on a hard roll (ewww not me though, I’ve always loathed pork roll).  I’d even go so far as to guess you’ve gone to a diner after at least one homecoming or school dance all dressed up with a big group of friends.  Yeah, we really love diners in Jersey.  At a diner you can get anything, Italian food, Greek gyros, Mexican food, and of course breakfast 24 hours a day.  Or if you go to my local diner you can get a “Fat Sandwich.”  Intrigued?  Here’s the selection of Fat Sandwiches at the diner tonight.

All those ingredients are on one Sub roll.  So if you order a Fat Flo you’d get a sub roll with chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, french fries and marinara sauce all stuffed on there. Or perhaps you’re very hungry and that’s not enough.  May I suggest a Fat Manny, which is  cheese steak, eggs, pork roll, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and ketchup all on a long roll.

I ordered a Fat Nancy.

I’m kidding of course.  My order was not on the “Fat Cat” portion of the menu.  I got a veggie wrap which included grilled eggplant and zucchini, spinach, tomatoes, romaine lettuce, carrots, red onions, and mozzarella cheese, with balsamic dressing on the side.

 

It came with french fries, but Andrew’s meal came with home fries so I gave him all my fries for 1/2 of his home fries.   Delicious.  I ate one 1/2 the wrap and then picked the eggplant off the other half and just ate that, and I also ate almost all of the home fries.

Oh and my dad got a greek salad with his entree so I gladly ate some of that as well.

Here’s the whole salad.

I ate less then a 1/4 of his salad, mostly just picked out all his onions and ate those.

So there you have it, a typical night at a Jersey Diner, hope you enjoyed yourselves!

 

Hope you all have a great night, and hope your Friday flies by so you can start enjoying your weekends!

Friday Night Slumbey

Hey I wanted to do a quick post, my sister is here for a sleep over.  So I’m just quickly going to post my eats so I can get back to hanging out with my sister.

For breakfast I had vanilla chobani, cranberries, and granola.

This stayed with me right until lunch.

As I was getting my lunch together to eat I got a call from the receptionist to come up to the lobby.  When I walked in Andrew was there with flowers!!!  He had the day off for President’s day and came down to visit me for lunch and bring me the flowers.  How sweet is that?

For lunch I had pb and banana on a ww bagel.

A few hours later I was hungry so I had some grapes and 2 clementines.

For dinner Andrew made Crock Pot Chicken parm.  He just pounded out 2 chicken breasts until they were about 1/2 and inch thick put it in the crock pot with a jar of marinara sauce and let it cook on high for 3 hours.  After it was completely cooked he sprinkled on some part skim mozzarella cheese.  It was unbeleviably delicious!  Definitely didn’t miss the breading at all, cooking chicken in the crockpot makes it so tender!

On the side I had a serving on ww penne.

Sooooo good!  Can’t wait to make this again, Chicken parm is my ultimate favorite food so finding a much healthier version is exciting. 

I hope you are all having a fun Friday night I’m off to hang out with Andrew and my sister.

3 Day Recap

Since I haven’t posted any of my eats since Thursday, I have a lot of recapping to do.  I can’t believe this weekend is over already and another week of work starts tomorrow.  I still have a few things I’d like to accomplish before I go to bed tonight so I’m going to try to do this as quick as possible.

Friday for breakfast I had 2 clementines and a peach Chobani yogurt. Of course it was amazing!

For lunch that day I had an Amy’s burrito, I forgot to take a picture of the wrapper but it was a Cheddar Cheese and bean burrito.  Once again I was not let down by Amy’s.  It was absolutely delicious and I will definitely be buying many more of their meals to try!

After work and before the gym I ate a Clif bar while watching Thursday night’s Office episode.  There’s Michael Scott in the background.

After the gym and before our friends came over I ate a bowl of PB Puffins and blueberries with skim milk.  Delicious combo. 

We had a lot of fun with our friends Friday night, and once I again I decided to partake in any drinking and just chugged some water. 

Saturday was a busy day I had laundry to do, I had to pick up a couple more things for my blogger who I got in the exchange for Valentine’s day, ship it out (don’t worry it should be there Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest I shipped it all priority), and go to the chiropractor.  I didn’t have much of an appetite but I planned on going to the gym so I finally forced myself to eat some oatmeal around 12.

I made these at my parents house while doing my laundry and I just didn’t put enough milk in, they were really dry but once I mixed the pb in there it was delicious.  I still can’t believe I’m eating oats!!!

After the gym I still wasn’t hungry.  Something was just off, I was afraid I was getting sick but but my appetite was back in full force today.  For dinner we went to SaladWorks.  I got their Fire-Roasted Fiesta salad without tortilla strips and no dressing.    We brought it back to my parents house while I was still waiting for my laundry to be done.   I put a couple tablespoons of Salsa on the salad once I got to their house.  I also had a whole wheat roll from there.

Like I already said my appetite was back today and I woke up this morning craving an egg sandwich.  I had one “pam” fried egg with 3 pieces of turkey sausage all on a multi-grain roll.

After breakfast we cleaned up around the apartment and then went to the gym.  I had a really great sweaty session again today.  I’m so happy that my workouts have been pretty consistent so far.  And I love seeing the changes to my body.

After the gym I went to my parents house to pick up my camera, but when I got there my dad was washing off their cars so I took the opportunity to clean some of the salt off of Cocoa.   She looks so shiny and happy now.

After my parents house we were heading to Andrew’s parent’s house to visit.  Before we went though we stopped at Panera because I was really craving their Low Fat chicken tortilla soup.  I got a “you pick two” with the classic cafe garden salad, the soup, and a whole wheat baguette.

 

I used about 1/2 the dressing and ate every morsel of the rest.

After our visit to Andrew’s parent’s house we headed home.  I have been craving pizza since late last night.  I gave in today and made a pizza the same as last time.

It was delicious and I ate this plus the other 2 slices. It was perfect for my craving.  It definitely hit the spot!

Well I hope you all had a great weekend!  Sorry about my lack of commenting and posting this weekend.  Everything should be back to normal during the week.

Exhausted

I had my training again tonight and it seriously wiped me out.  I hope you all don’t mind if I make this a terribly quick post with just my eats.

For breakfast I had overnight oats! I can’t believe how much I love oatmeal now!  This one included vanilla extract, cinnamon, 1/2 a cup of oats, 1/2 a cup of skim milk, and a tablespoon of pb.  I didn’t have any more bananas and I definitely missed it.

This held me over until lunch.  But I actually did have a sweet inbetween this and lunch.  My boss made nutella cups.  I had to sample one.

It was good but really sweet.  And you all know I’m not the biggest sweets fan.  One was more then enough for me.

Lunch was left over Snobby Joe’s over a little more then a serving of brown rice.

 

And 2 clementines.

I had an afternoon snack of the last of my grapes and some pistachios.  As much as I love pistachios I can’t wait for the bag to be gone, I can’t help snacking on them.

Dinner tonight was a salad from whole foods before my personal training, it was kind of lacking and was nothing special.  It had a couple raviolis, pad Thai, Caesar salad, edamame salad, 2 potato fries, rotisserie chicken, and I’m sure I’m missing something.

I ate this at my parent’s house since they are closer to my gym. 

Okay I know this post really stunk.  I’m aware and will try to make up for it tomorrow although I believe we’re having an impromptu party at our apartment to get rid of all the damn beer in the fridge, so I might be short on time.

To make up for my less then stellar blogging today here’s another picture of my dog Bailey.  Here she is begging for food from Andrew.

 

Have a great night everyone!  Tomorrow is Friday!

Come on Spring!

I am so sick of winter!  When I was leaving for work this morning at 7:30 it was already snowing.  It’s still knowing now, almost 13 hours later, and we have about 6 inches.  That’s more then we’ve had in the past few years.  I’m a big baby when it comes to driving in the snow, so needless to say my commute home was awful.

Atleast my food today was all delicious.

For breakfast I had “overnight oats”  I used 1/2 a cup of oats, 1/2 a cup of milk, 1 tbsp of water.  I mixed it all together with cinnamon, and vanilla extract and then popped it in the fridge until I left this morning.  Once I got to work I mixed in 1/2 mushed up banana and mixed that in the oats.  I threw it in the microwave for 1 minute 30 seconds.  It was perfect and dare I say even better then my oats Sunday morning?  No wonder you all love this so much.

Right before I ate it I mixed in 1 tbsp on pb and the last of my blueberries.

Spoiler alert: I already threw some overnight oats in the fridge and will have something super similar tomorrow.

This stuck with me all the way through to lunch.  For lunch I had a string cheese, spinach salad, and 2 clementines.

Perfect lunch!

Around 3 I had a snack of grapes and some pistachios.

As I already said my ride home was awful here are some pictures I snapped while waiting at lights.

 

 

And there’s even more now!

I had every intention of going to the gym but I was braving the roads again.  I decided to make ahead as much as I could for the rest of the week considering I was stuck at home.

Busy kitchen!

For tonight’s dinner I made Lasagna roll-ups.  I originally got the idea from The Cooking Light Cookbook.  In my roll-ups I mixed cooked green bell peppers, onions, and garlic with 1/2 a cup of ricotta.  Then put about a tablespoon of filling on the end of a lasagna noodle rolled it up and covered it with sauce, put it in the oven for 10 minutes and then sprinkled mozzarella cheese on them.

I made 8 in total but here are my 2 from dinner

I had a salad on the side as well.

 

Yummy dinner and I have leftovers.  I also have all my food for tomorrow packed so now it’s time for me to wait for Andrew to get home from work and then go to bed.  What a long snowy day.

Hope you’re warm if it’s snowing wherever you are!

See you tomorrow!

Bottomless Pit

My goodness I have been so hungry all day!  I know days like this will happen from time to time, and I hope I get better dealing with those days where all I want to do is eat and eat and eat!

Breakfast this morning was Fage 0% yogurt with granola and cranberries.

So good, although Chobani is definitely my favorite this is not far behind.   I love the tart cranberries mixed into the yogurt.  One of my favorite combinations.

My hunger attacks didn’t start until later in the day so this held me over until lunch.

Lunch was a pb and banana sandwich on an Arnold Sandwich Thin.

And 2 of my beloved clementines!!!

That’s what my stomach became a bottomless pit.

At 3 I ate peanuts.

I made it home for dinner without gnawing off my arm somehow.

For dinner I made a stir fry.

It contained

• a green pepper
• some onion
• broccoli stalks
• carrots
• chicken
• & brown rice

This held me over for about 10 minutes.

Then I ate about 8 Quaker Oatmeal mini rice cakes.  Then I drank some water.  Then while I was on the phone with my friend Michelle, I mindlessly grabbed a spoon and my jar of peanut butter and took a big spoonful and ate it right out of the jar.  It was heavenly, but so not needed.    I feel satisfied finally!  But seriously that was a lot of eats in just a couple hours.  Sorry there are no pictures of my snacks they were in my mouth faster then any camera could have snapped a pic of them.

So on days like this where I just can’t get enough food, what’s something I can do?  Does anyone have any tips on squishing that feeling, or a snack that almost always knocks out the hunger?

Hope you all have a good night, I’m hoping for another snow day but I’m not holding my breath.

Sunday Cleanup

Hey everyone!  Hope you had a great weekend.  I can’t believe it’s already over.  I am so ready to get in bed and relax for the coming week.  I know it’s going to be a busy one at work with lots of meetings and deadlines for major projects. 

We had a lot of fun at the party last night.  I talked about Michelle last week and how I’ve known her since I was very little.  I’m very lucky to have lots of close friends from my childhood, my 4 closest girlfriends are girls I’ve known since I was in elementary school.  One of them is Laura, if you enjoy celebrity gossip she has a great blog.  I’ve known her, since I believe, Kindergarten.  Last night the party we went to was for her Fiancé.  I’m very excited for her and I’m actually in her wedding party.  I know it’s going to be so much fun and I can’t wait until next March for the wedding!  

Laura’s wedding is another reason I want to lose weight.  In addition to her wedding next year, I also have my cousin’s wedding in September.   This past July I was in another one of my childhood friend’s wedding.  I had a great time but I know I would have been able to have more fun if I was smaller.  When you’re in a group of 9 girls and you’re all wearing the same thing it’s hard to not judge how you look compared to the others.  It was a hard day for me, but the wedding was so fun I was able to move past my own insecurities and I had a great time.

At the party last night I had a bite of one of Andrew’s mozzarella sticks.  Other then that I stuck to just a couple glasses of water.  I’m really happy I’ve cut back on my alcohol drinking. It’s been really easy so far.  And since I’m allergic to beer my bar tabs can be pretty large since most mixed drinks cost between 5 and 7 bucks.  It’s definitely nice to not wake up with hangovers on the weekend and to be saving money.

Let’s get into today’s eats.

Breakfast was a quick bowl of PB Puffins.

After breakfast it was time to bite the bullet and do some laundry.  It’s been a very long time since I’ve done any.  Since we don’t have a washer and dryer in our apartment I go to my mom’s house to do my laundry.  I’m still a mooch what can I say.  We’re looking to rent a house or move to another apartment next year, and on the top of my list are, laundry hookups in the apartment, and pets need to be allowed there.  I love our apartment now but lugging laundry up and down 3 flights of stairs is a bit of a pain.  Plus I’ve been thinking lately how much I’d love to have a pet and my landlords put in the lease that there were no pets allowed.  We live in an old Victorian house built around 1896 and the landlords live right below us, so there’s no way we could get away with having any pets.  Although we’re thinking we might ask them if we could get something small like a chinchilla, or something similar.  I miss my dog a lot and it would be nice to have some kind of animal here.

While doing my laundry I ate a deep chocolate vitamuffin with pb and a clementine I stole from my parents.

While my second load of laundry was in the dryer Andrew and I went to the gym.  I had another great workout and was really excited because I was able to run a lot longer then ever before.  Nothing that impressive but since I only started running about a week and a 1/2 ago I’ve already seen a great increase in my endurance.  It makes going to the gym so much fun when every time your there you can see and feel a great improvement.

After the gym I went back to my parents and while waiting for my laundry to be done I snacked on some baby carrots, and some dip.

I ate all the carrots and about 1/2 of the dip.  It was a delicious crunchy snack.

After my laundry was finally complete we came home and I cleaned out my whole dresser and reorganized everything.  I still need to organize my closet but that can wait until next weekend.  Next weekend I plan on doing a complete and thorough clean up of the apartment.  And the closet is on the top of my list of things to get done.

For dinner Andrew and I tried something new.  We decided to make ravioli using wonton wrappers.  Mine were stuffed with spinach and fat free ricotta, while Andrew stuffed his with meat.  They came out really good for our first time, although a few of them did burst while boiling.  I ate all the spinach ones I made and a couple of Andrew’s meat ones.  I have to say the ones with meat were absolutely delicious.  The spinach ones were great, but Andrew’s tasted like really great meatballs. He did an awesome job.  

That’s not the best picture, but it’s the best one I have. 

Well enjoy the rest of your Sunday night everyone.  See you tomorrow!

Quick post before bed

I had a long day, and another sinus headache.  So this is going to be a quick post with just my eats.  Sorry for the lack of comments on all your blogs, it was a super busy day at work followed by a meeting at the gym to sign up for a personal trainer.  I got a great deal, and was able to do 10 miles on the bike while waiting for my appointment. Good day for me, bad day for blogging.  But thanks for all your advice on the acupuncture, a few of you suggested trying to switch doctors, unfortunately this is through my car insurance since it is because of an accident, getting them to approve acupuncture itself isn’t easy, and now switching doctors could be a nightmare.  I’m giving it one more shot tomorrow and if all goes well I’ll continue. If it’s like yesterday I’ll be giving up unless I can get approval to go somewhere else.

Onto the eats:

Breakfast, switching it up with Fage.  It had puffins mixed in and my last clementine (!) on the side.

Lunch was my leftovers from the other night, and  a lettuce-less salad (green peppers, cucumber, and carrot) with light balsamic dressing. 

 

My snack was the apple you see in the background.  Another braeburn, I had it around 3:30.

Before heading to the gym I had 1/2 a carrot cake clif bar.

Dinner was after the gym, I went to Subway with an old friend who works at the gym (and also got me the sweet deal for the trainer.)  Here’s a picture I snapped with my cell phone.  Sorry it’s not the best photo.

It was the veggie delight with lettuce, cucumbers, green peppers, onions, and banana peppers, with vinegar on it. 

Yum!

Sorry again about my lack of stellar posting, and also my lack of commenting, I’ll be back in full force tomorrow I hope.

I feel like a Pincushion

More on my not-so-good acupuncture experience in a minute. 

But first here are today’s eats.

I got my Chobani back!  It’s actually on sale this week so there was only one left, but I did get a rain check and will be heading back to the store to stock up while they’re 10 for 10.  Mixed into the plain yogurt I had more Bare Naked Peak Protein granola, I love that granola!

That’s my second to last clementine.  I need to make another trip to Whole Foods for some more, they’re the only place I can find them where 1/2 the box isn’t already rotten. 

Around 11:00 I got hungry so I had a small bag of pb puffins, I can’t get enough of the cereal.

Lunch was Cinnamon Raisin Swirl PB with Raspberry Preserves on an Arnold Sandwich thin.

 

With 15 kashi crackers on the side.  Good lunch but I definitely missed my veggie.

And a braeburn apple, it was a pretty good apple.

 

After work and my acupuncture appointment I raced home to eat I was starving and I knew I needed fresh veggies so sorry about the repeat but it was another taco salad, this was included the same except instead of green peppers I had mini cucumbers. 

It looks like a lot of meat but it was only 2.5 ounces.  I had a second bowl with another 1/2 an ounce and no cheese and a little less veggies.  Those veggies filled me right up and gave me exactly what I was craving.  I never thought I would crave fresh veggies, but I guess I’ll learn a lot of things about myself this year.

So my acupuncture appointment was not what I expected at all.   The doctor sat me in a chair and stuck about 12 needles in my neck and the back of my head, then 2 in my hands, and 2 in my feet.  It was weird but it didn’t hurt at all.  He told me he’d be back in 20 minutes to take the needles out and to just try to relax.  I sat in the chair and felt really calm, then about 12 minutes into everything started to sound muffled.  I told myself it was nothing and to just stick it out, after a few more minutes I started to feel nauseous, and I was really sweating.  I felt like I was going to either pass out or puke.  He had given me a bell to ring if anything happened. 

After a minute when the feeling didn’t pass and I actually felt worse I rang the bell.  He didn’t come, I rang it again, and again, and again, I think in total I rang the bell 8 times.  Finally the receptionist came in, she told me I looked awful and very pale.  I told her I was going to pass out so she got the doctor.  He came in and told me I looked greenish and was all sweaty, he took all the needles out and told me to lay down on the table.  He went to get me water and when he came back in he told me he had put too many needles in for my first time!  What!?  Why would he do that?!  He told me that it happens sometimes and that I just needed to relax.  He asked if I was scared of needles or if I had ever given blood, I told him I was scared, but I had given blood before.  I don’t think it had anything to do with being afraid of the needles because why would it happen 15 minutes later, not right away?

After I felt better and able to drive home I left, he made another appointment for me on Wednesday.  But I don’t know what to do.  Should I go?  My left hand hurts really bad right now and there’s a small amount of bruising where the needle was. 

 I need advice, should I try one more time, or call it quits on acupuncture?