Thursday – eating in the heat?

OK, I know I’ve already said this – but it is HOT here today!!  there is not too much to discuss since I have not been hungry for most of the day.

I had another Blueberry Wheat Bran muffin for breakfast and a great cup of coffee.

I had a few morning meetings, and got a bit hungry before lunch – but took my break at 12:30. My colleague and I decided to eat at the picnic tables outside.

I had prepared a great salad this morning, and brought along a  hard boiled egg, garlic croutons and a tablespoon of Annie’s Goddess dressing.  I dove right into my salad after working hard to peel the hard boiled egg

Thankfully I remembered to take a picture before I was totally done with the salad!

I brought along a piece of whole wheat pita bread… but did not need it with lunch. At four o’clock I had half of the pita bread.

I am not sure what I am going to have for dinner. But when I got home I was hungry, and had a protein shake – ie a glass of 1% milk and a scoop of Aria. Ben and I are busy packing for the camping trip right now… and I just made a homemade batch of GORP with a few additions

My GORP has lightly salted peanuts, raisins, semi-sweet chocolate chips (not very many – they can melt!) and banana chips!  I cannot wait to snack on this stuff while we’re hiking!

OK, I gotta run and pack all of my stuff for the weekend. I hope you guys all have a great weekend, too!

The first couple of days …

Hi Guys -

Hope you are having a good week so far.

Ben and I had a great hike on Sunday – even though the temperature was only in the high fifties on Sunday, I was comfortable hiking in my favorite City Sports tee-shirt most of the way – but being a responsible hiker, I had two long sleeve layers for when I wasn’t hiking up such an incline, and in case the weather got colder.  Here is a pic from the hike – I am holding up two fingers for “Hike #2″ of the spring season.

I’m not sure how far we hiked on Sunday (but I am going to figure it out – and I will report back when I do!) but we hiked for about two and a half hours.  It was so much fun! After the hike Ben and I went to the movies (in our stinky hiking clothes – nice!) and saw the movie Duplicity. If you’re looking for a good movie to see this weekend, I highly recommend it – we both liked it a lot. After the movies, I actually got myself to the grocery store – but I certainly did not have a “big shop” in me.  Instead I bought a light bread and Chobani yogurts for this week – they were on sale!!!

On Monday I had oatmeal for breakfast – Quaker Weight Loss banana bread with no add ins.

I was hungry by 11 am but managed to get through until lunch.  I was so excited to enjoy Chobani once again in my lunch! I cut up strawberries and blue berries and mixed those in with the vanilla Chobani and it was wonderful.

Along with the fruit and yogurt I had a peanut butter and jam sandwich on “light” oatmeal bread.  I really do not like “light” bread, but the entire sandwich was only 210 calories – and with the yogurt and berries, it was a pretty good lunch.

As an afternoon snack, I had crackers around 4pm.  For dinner last night I made Trader Joe’s steamed chicken wantons, rice and steamed broccoli. I made extra – and had the left overs today for lunch today (Tuesday).

FYI – if you are looking for a quick,  easy and tasty veg to add to a meal, I highly recommend frozen broccoli and cauliflower. I love both of them and they are so easy to prepare!

For breakfast this morning the only thing I knew was what I did not want and that was oatmeal. I really wanted a bagel. (When do I not want a bagel!?) But the caf at work only had one and I think it was at least day old… so I passed on the bagel.  Instead I bought a Nature Valley granola bar. I love these things, but when you really want a bagel, they don’t really do the trick. However, I cannot complain since I made it until 12:30 for lunch today.

Lunch was left overs and about a half a cup of chobani with strawberries and blueberries again.  At 3pm I had a small piece of carrot cake to celebrate my friend Sarah’s birthday. What a lovely afternoon snack…!

Last night I finished the book Walking Home by Kelly Winters.  The book was a really great read – so if your interested in reading a book about hiking and the AT, I recommend it. I am now thinking about reading A Journey North by Adrienne Hall. It is another book written by a female walking the AT.  I’m a few pages into the book, and so far so good.  I checked Amazon and a few other websites and this book did not get quite as many great reviews that Walking Home received – but I am hopeful that this book will also be great. I will let you know.

OK, signing off for now. Have a great Hump Day everyone!

Sunday hiking and food

Hey All -

I am sad that the weekend is over. I had a pretty wonderful weekend, and I wish it was a longer one.

Sunday was a great day. I decided to sleep in – and slept until 10am. The only thing I had on the agenda was to be out of the house by noon.  Ben and I were planning to go on a nice hike in Lexington and Concord.

My first step was to create a great weekend breakfast that would keep me full for a while. I decided to have an egg white sandwich with a bagel. Yum.

This sandwich had everything: carbs, protein, and a little bit of fat (thanks to Earth-balance). It kept me full for hours!

Ben and I went on a great hike on Sunday. We hiked along the Battle Road Trail in the Minute Man National Park. We walked for five miles in just under two hours, stopping along to way to look at the historic homes and sites. It was a little cold, about 48 degrees maybe maxing out at 50 degrees when the sun was out. Here is a picture of me on the trail:

I was layered up (holding my Lululemon jacket on the side!) and I had my awesome Camelbak for the trail, too.  At the halfway point, Ben and I stopped for a few minutes to enjoy some trail mix that I made.  Almonds, dark chocolate, and raisins. . . I didn’t have my camera with me, so no photo

After the hike we went out for hamburgers. Wild Willy’s is a hamburger place in Watertown. Ben and I drive by it a lot on our way to Target or other places. In two years, we have never stopped to check it out. The other weekend we saw Wild Willy’s on Phantom Gourmet… and after the hike, I really needed a hamburger! I had not had red meat in over a month… and every so often my body tells me that it needs red meat.

Here is the burger I ordered on Sunday afternoon:

This is the “Willy” Burger… a.k.a. the classic American burger with lettuce, tomato, American cheese, pickles, ketchup and mustard.  These burgers were large and good.

For dinner I decided to have some carbs… pasta, with garlic and a tad bit of olive oil. I added a little bit of basic tomato sauce (low sodium) and turkey meat balls.

The pasta really hit the spot tonight!

I am really hoping that spring is on it’s way. On Sunday afternoon Ben and I went out for a walk to CVS…. and guess what!? There were snow flurries coming down in our neighborhood…. what the heck is going on!? I really need some spring weather! I’ll keep hoping that the warmer weather is on its way.

I hope ya’ll had a great weekend too and that everyone has a good start to their work week. See you soon!

First neighborhood “hike” stats

Hey All -
I just used the Map My Run app to map my neighborhood hike. It was 3.38 miles! What a good start to my training. It took me just under an hour to walk this. I was averaging just under a 15 minute mile. Not bad!

Spring is coming… and food of the day

Hi All -

Happy almost spring! The first day of spring is actually on Friday, but I’m celebrating a few days early.

Today after work I went for a great walk in my hiking boots. I walked for just over an hour and burned 436 calories (who would have thought you could burn that many calories walking up hill, down hill at a good pace??) and it was wonderful. On my walk I saw my first crocus of the year! I had my cell phone so I took a picture…

I have been seriously slacking on posting… on Friday night Ben, Lara and I decided to go to Cape Cod for the weekend… and the computer was left behind.  So, I’m starting with a recap of Monday’s food!

On Monday morning I had one of my awesome egg white sandwiches for breakfast on a Light whole wheat English muffin. I seriously love these sandwiches in the morning! They keep me full for so long, it is amazing.

After the sandwich, I was set until lunch time. I ate around 12:30 in the afternoon. Before lunch I went for a 25 minute walk… it was really cold by the water… but I was so excited to get out and walk at lunch – it gives me so much more energy to get through the rest of the afternoon.
Lunch was another turkey sandwich on Arnold sandwich thins, with lettuce, and hummus. Along with the sandwich I enjoyed some slices of cantaloupe that Ben sliced up on Monday morning… it was soooo good!

About an hour after lunch, I enjoyed this oatmeal and raisin cookie from Trader Joe’s. This cookie was great and only 120 calories!

The entire lunch was about 365 calories.

I went on a small walk before dinner, about 15 minutes. For dinner I met my friend Ann Marie at one of our favorite places – Anna’s Taqueria. If you live in Boston and you’re a fan of burritos, I am pretty sure you’ve been to Anna’s and probably think it is just as wonderful as I do. I love Anna’s.  Last night for dinner I made a couple of different decisions when I was ordering my dinner.  Instead of ordering my usual super burrito, I ordered a “regular” burrito. Instead of getting cheese on the burrito, I told them to hold the cheese. Sigh. My burrito consisted of chicken, beans, a small amount of rice, lettuce, hot sauce, salsa, guacamole, and a small amount of sour cream (about a tablespoon).  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera in my lunch bag, which was in the car.  But I have to tell you – even if I had my camera, I don’t think it would have been a really nice picture. Consider yourself lucky that you’re missing out!

I was a bit disturbed that after eating my burrito I was still hungry. How is that possible!?  Oh well. I am not going to dwell on it. All I have to say is that Anna’s was fantastic and I hope to be back soon!

Tuesday started out with be being tired!! Ben made coffee, so I enjoyed two cups of coffee at home while I was getting ready for work.  I had a different breakfast this morning… and I’m not sure what to say about it yet!  This morning I made oat bran for breakfast.  A cup of cooked oat bran is only 88 calories… 7 grams of protein, 2 grams of fat, and 6 grams of fiber!  I need to experiment a little more with the right consistency to make them “fantastic” because today they were ok.  But I’m going to try it again tomorrow, I think.  Tomorrow I’ll take a photo!

At lunch today I took a twenty minute walk to Au Bon Pain. (It’s about ten minutes each way.)  I was only going along for the walk, but I thought a cup of soup would go well with my sandwich today.  I was soo happy to see that ABP had some reduced sodium, low fat soup on the menu today – I was also super surprised!!  Today I had a 12 ounce cup of Tomato and Rice soup. It was only 120 calories, 10% of my daily sodium and it also only had 1 gram of fat.  I really liked this soup a lot, because there were other veggies in it.  The soup had yellow squash, zucchini, celery, carrots and onions along with chucks of tomato and long grain rice. Yum!

I also enjoyed my usual sandwich. Turkey, lettuce, sandwich thin, yellow mustard, pickles and low fat jalapeno jack cheese. The sandwich was 200 calories for a total lunch of 320.

At 3:30 this afternoon I had another TJ’s oatmeal raisin cookie for my afternoon snack.

I left work at 4:30 this aftenroon and went straight home to get my hiking boots on. Ben and I are planning a summer of hiking, backpacking and camping. I needed to start walking in my boots again! I did an hour of walking in my hilly neighborhood. I think it’s a good start to getting my hike on. Ben and I are hoping to be able to get a hike in over the weekend… I will keep you posted!

I hope you’re all having a great start to your week!  I’ll be posting again soon!