Thursday

Hey All -

Wow, I am so excited that tomorrow is Friday!  I got up at 6:30 again this morning and I did make stove top oats. I can officially say this was the best bowl of oats I’ve ever made! Here is what the oat combo was:

3/8 cup dry rolled oats

1/8 oat bran

1/2 cup skim milk

1/2 cup water

Once the oats were almost done cooking, I mixed in a teaspoon of ground flax. In the bowl I stirred in half a scoop of protein powder. The toppings for today’s oats are as follows: a sprinkle of granola (more on this soon – Mix My Granola and my mix has dried blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and blackberries and Chai seeds!), a smidge of brown sugar, a spoon of Teddie peanut butter.

I enjoyed the oats with a mug of coffee with skim milk.

Breakfast did a great job of holding me over until after my lunch time walk. At 12 o’clock two of my colleagues and I braved the WINDY April day for a walk. Walking by the water was so windy that we took a short cut through UMass campus to get back to our offices. During this short cut we happened to discover that Starbucks was giving out free coffee today! We particularly enjoyed having our coffee on the walk back to the office:

Lunch was on the small side today because I was not thinking very creatively this morning.  However, the lunch was amazing and really satisfying.  I mixed the granola into my Chobani yogurt and the banana was perfectly ripe – so good!

The Granola, by Mix My Granola:

I must say that I love my Sugar & Spice Granola that I custom designed and ordered on Monday… and I could not believe that it was at my door on Wednesday! So far everything I have added my granola to has been even better than usual – the sign of a great add in!  If you are a fan of granola, I totally recommend checking out their website and taking a moment to design and order your own custom mix!

At 4:15 this afternoon I had my PM snack (I love the fact that I made it until 4:15 – who would have thought my lunch would have kept me going for that long?) For my snack I tried another new bar…  a Clif Nectar bar.

This bar was very good and I liked that it was lower in calories compared to the Larabar and Pure Bar… but if I’m going for over all taste, etc. I think I would pick Pure Bar first. All three of these bars are wonderful though – the ingredients are fantastic and the bars will keep you going for a long time. I did not have another snack until 7:45 tonight!

After getting home from work, I went out on a 2.6 mile run.  I changed my route a little bit today and it was nice to run on streets with less of an incline. I did do most of Heartbreak Hill in the middle of the run, but because it was the only hill it was not that bad – considering I was only running 2.6 miles!

About an hour after the run (and re-hydrating) I enjoyed a salad and two pieces of pizza (!) dinner was very good. No post dinner snacks needed!

The salad had mixed greens (mostly green lettuce) with red peppers, carrots and tomato – croutons were also added! The dressing was balsamic vinegar drizzled over the salad.

I love cheese pizza from our neighborhood guys at Newtonville Pizza.  I added red pepper flakes and garlic powder to the top of the pizza. It was great!

Ok, I am signing off for now. At the moment I am sipping on coffee with honey, trying to get this soar throat to go away once and for all! I feel like I could be paying the price for walking in the wind and cold this week! Boo.

See ya’ll tomorrow – have a great Friday!

Lovely Berries..!

Hey All -

Spring is here (sort of) and with the season comes berries. Wow – I have been enjoying some fresh berries over the last couple of days. I love them! It has been a long winter, and I love seeing fresh strawberries, blue berries and raspberries in the market.

Here is what my breakfast looked like this morning:

It is amazing what three strawberries and a handful of blueberries can do to a bowl of Cheerios!  I added a spoonful of Teddie peanut butter in hopes that the cold cereal will keep me full for a few hours. Ben and I are planning a day hike in the Blue Hills Reservation and I need my breakfast to hold me over for a few hours!

I also added some blueberries to my oatmeal on Friday.  On Friday I took a container of milk, a handful of blueberries and a teaspoon of peanut butter to work with me for a pretty good bowl of oatmeal.  Here is what the oatmeal looked like:

And breakfast was at my desk with a 10 Calorie Vitamin Water which is pretty good! I used to really like drinking Vitamin Water – but I always thought of how many calories I was drinking, and finally realized it just was not worth the extra calories – since normal water tastes great to me, and it’s calorie free.  For those of you who do not love plain water, try adding a couple of slices of lemon or a couple of mint leaves to your water bottle to add a little bit of flavor to your water.

On Thursday night, I was reading part of a new blog that I saw on Kath’s blog… this post talks about the true signs of hunger. (click on the words to read the blog entry!) It’s gotten me to thinking of when I am actually hungry, and when I am not. It was very interesting and thought provoking. I am definitely guilty of sometimes eating when I am bored. Most of the times I feel that I am about to snack when I am not 100% hungry, I will make a hot cup of tea… and that usually gets me out of my “snacky” frame of mind.

But back to Friday -  breakfast  held me over for four hours, and when my stomach started to make noise I realized it was time for lunch. I was not going to have lunch until my stomach told me it was time for lunch. I had left over Mexican food – one enchilada, some rice and refried beans. It was the perfect mix of protein (the enchiladas are amazingly full of white chicken that tastes soooo good!! Lots of protein!) and carbs, and of course some fat from the cheese.  I am warning you – left over Mexican food does NOT look pretty! But I took a picture of it anyway. 

Because the food was in a styrofoam container, I brought a Fiestaware sandwich plate with me to work, other wise I wouldn’t have been able to heat up my food! Here is the photo:

I know. It looks pretty gross, but it was soooo good! On Friday I ate lunch while reading Walking Home which got me excited for hiking this weekend!

I was exhausted on Friday – but got through the day, with the help of a Clif Bar. I had the remaining half (?) of the Blueberry Clif bar I had earlier in the week. I had this snack around 4pm.

Clif and water… yum!

Ok, I’m going to sign off for now. I have to get ready for the Blue Hills!! It’s still only in the 40s outside – but it is supposed to get up into the high fifties – I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

Hope you all have a great Sunday… see you later tonight!

Is it Hump day already!?

Hey Guys-

Wow, I am such a blog slacker this week! I’m sorry. I do not know how it is Wednesday night already, and this is my first post of the week. Oh well. Things have been so busy – and I have accomplished a lot, so I guess that is a good thing.

This is going to be a basic catch up post… so forgive me if it is a little hard to read!

This week I have been enjoying oatmeal for breakfast. On Monday I had oatmeal at home before heading to work, I added a spoonful of peanut butter and a small amount of trail mix… here’s a picture:

This oatmeal was the best of the week – because I made it with skim milk instead of water. The milk adds more protein, and the peanut butter adds some protein and fat which keeps you full for a long time. Sweet!

Today I got to work before 8 o’clock (at 7:45 to be exact!) and had oatmeal before my two new interns started their first day. I was relieved that I got to work early enough to have breakfast before my super busy day started.  I even had enough time to snap a photo:

This oatmeal was sort of boring because it was made at work (with water – meh!) but the trail mix on top was pretty good… almonds, peanuts, dried raspberries (my favorite!) and little pieces of dark chocolate… For some reason I got super hungry at 11:15 this morning. I totally ate half a Cliff Bar!

This Blueberry Crisp flavor was awesome! I had not tried it before, and I really like it a lot. I can see how this will definitely be in my pack this summer while we are on hikes and camping trips.  I did not get around to having lunch until about 1 o’clock (so glad I had my mid-morning snack!) and my options were very limited. I decided on a tuna sandwich from the caf… and didn’t have time to take a picture. The protein was great though, it kept me going until I left work.

Yesterday after getting home from work I went on a three and a half mile run.  It was my first outdoor run in quite some time… and I’m feeling it today! Our neighborhood is sort of hilly… for those of you who follow the Boston Marathon – have you ever heard of Heart Break Hill? Well, that’s my neighborhood – and  I run that hill almost every time I run outside.   Yesterday I was so pleased to see  that my Road ID had arrived in the mail. I actually felt safer wearing it!

After the run, Ben and I went over to our friend Jenn’s house.  We had dinner (I had two pieces of pizza and one boneless chicken wing – and chips! SO glad I went out for that run before hand!) and we watched the Twilight movie. I had read the book – and I started reading the second book, and have not gotten through it yet, but I might just be inspired by the movie to give it a second try. The movie was really entertaining!

A couple of days ago, I picked up a load of bread from our neighborhood Great Harvest:

This bread was wonderful. I made turkey sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches and toast with this stuff. Yum.

Here is what I had for lunch the other day – an awesome salad, and a little while later a great Larabar.  As I have said before, I simply LOVE Larabars… because so often I am very hungry, and this bar is one of the few things that will fill me up for hours. LOVE IT!

Another reason I have not blogged in a while is that I have been reading some great books!  I have to say, I wish there were a few more hours in the day. After working, commuting, making breakfast, lunch and dinner, and exercising – there just IS NOT that much time left in the day. So I have been spending my extra hour or two a day reading instead of blogging – so sad that I have to choose, but that is life.

SO – right now I am reading Walking Home: A Woman’s Pilgrimage on the Appalachian Trail. I really like this book a lot – and if any of you like reading books about the outdoors, camping and hiking – I highly recommend it!  It will also make you appreciate your bed, WATER and food a lot   While I have been reading this book, I think about how you have to be a good writer to keep people interested while you are walking 2,100 miles in the forest!  But Kelly Winters definitely does it. She will keep you turning the pages. I am really enjoying it.

Well, I’m going to sign off for now and get back to my reading. I will be back tomorrow! Hope ya’ll are having a good week so far.

Thursday – breakfast & lunch

Hi All -

Ok, well it is finally Thursday.  I have been thinking it was Thursday for a couple of days now – and so I am finally on track!

This morning Ben brought me coffee in bed – that is how tired I was! It was so nice to have coffee while still in bed – and it didn’t really make me want to get up.  (I was nice and cozy, and it was gray and raining outside!)  The caffine did it’s job eventually and I did get up.

I got to work around 8:45 and had breakfast immediately upon my arrival. Because I was running short of time at home – I threw a Clif Bar into my bag for breakfast. 

As Clif Bars go, this one was really good. It was chocolate chip peanut crunch. I ate the whole thing, which was 250 calories (11 grams of protein). It kept me full until well after my normal lunch time…

Lunch was a chicken curry wrap that I had to buy at the caf.

The wrap was a bit large today – but for some reason I ate most all of it. I blogged about the curry chicken last week or the week before when I split one with Katherine.  The curry chicken salad is so good! It has red grapes, walnuts and curry mixed in with the chicken and the wrap comes with green lettuce.

I was so full for the rest of the afternoon! At 4pm I had my afternoon snack – a fat free Jello pudding and a clementine. Yum.

Talk about boring food for breakfast, lunch and snack – right? Sorry for such a non-interesting blog entry. I will be back with my dinner in a while!