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!

Happy Monday

Hey All -

Well, it’s Monday again   I had a pretty good start to the week. I packed a great couple of meals for work.

I started the day off around 7 o’clock this morning. I had a quick five ounces of Calcium and Vitamin D fortified orange juice to get me on my way. Instead of taking the extra time to have breakfast at home, I packed my oatmeal, banana and an individual sized serving of Barney Butter.

Breakfast mixed together really well! I put the oatmeal in the bowl I keep at work (you should never, ever EVER microwave in plastic!) added half a banana and water and popped the bowl into the microwave for 1 minute. I then stirred the oats, and put it in again for a couple more seconds. I cannot tell you what a difference microwaving the entire bowl makes in the consistency of the oatmeal – it becomes so much more substantial!  Once the oats were cooked, I added one tablespoon of Barney Butter to the mix.

The total calorie count on breakfast was: 300 calories, and 370 calories if you count the orange juice.

Breakfast was so perfect and filling, I was able to go for a brisk 22 minute walk before I ate lunch. It was freezing outside – but it felt great to go for a walk. I even saw a few snow flakes while I was walking! Since we work right by the water, the wind today was very strong… I am glad I got in the 22 minute walk in – even though it was definitely a challenge!

For lunch I brought some of the left over salad, one tablespoon of light dressing, and a piece of pizza from last night!  The pizza was about 240 calories and the salad was about 40 calories for a total of 280 calories.

Today I went back to visit a website that I used to frequent quite often: Calorie King. If you haven’t checked Calorie King, click on the link. You can find out how many calories your favorite snacks are. When I’m trying to get back into eating well and back on track I find Calorie King really helpful!

I had to leave work a little bit early today because I have been having an alergic reaction to something… I am not really sure what.  But a couple of days ago I changed my facial mosturizer, and ever since I’ve been having the allergic reaction. I returned the mosturizer today and bought the one I usually use… I hope that helps. I also bought fragrance free laundry detergent and bath soap. Ugh.

When I got home from Whole Foods, I made my afternoon snack.

I am still sipping on the seltzer water as I type. The apple and Barney Butter were sooooo perfect!  In case you are wondering what a tablespoon looks like check out this picture:

Today I measured out my tablespoon of Barney Butter for the afternoon snack. It’s nice when a tablespoon is actually more than what you think it is!   The apple is about 60 calories and a tablespoon of BB is 90… for a total of 150 calories for my afternoon snack.

I am hoping that when Ben gets home from work we will be able to go to the gym and get our first workout of the week in. I will be back soon for a post dinner post!

Tuesday – No Plastic Baggies for Lunch!

Ok – one thing I am super bad at is packing parts of my lunch in plastic bags. Ugh. I hate using plastic bags because I know they are horrible for the environment. So, Monday night I took out some of my re-usable containers and packed my lunch using them instead of plastic bags.

On to the dull side of food for Tuesday – I basically ate the same thing as Monday.  For breakfast, I had another mix of Kashi Go Lean Crunch and Trader Joe’s high fiber with skim milk. Yum.

(OK, in this pic there is a spoonful of peanut butter – this was from this weekend, not what I ate today – I did not have the peanut butter, but I had the same mix of cereal!!)

I was hungry before lunch time. I had a snack at 11:30 because I knew I would be going for a walk before having lunch.  My snack was a Quaker’s True Delight:

I ended up having lunch around 12:45 after going for a really nice half hour walk. The walk definitely got me excited for Spring! Even though it was only forty degrees this afternoon, it felt sooo warm – considering that a couple of days ago it was twenty degrees!!

Lunch looked like this:

What you see here is my turkey sandwich… and in the red container are the Baked Lay’s potato chips (just a few).  My turkey sandwich was pretty good today!

I ate lunch at my desk today…. because in the lunch room it was DESSERT DAY!  Here is what I saw when I walked into the lunch room… check it out….!

I had the smallest peanut butter bar with my lunch… It was great!  I knew that if I stayed in the lunch room, I would have more snacks, so I ate at my desk and read a little bit of Loving Frank (which is a great book –  I highly recommend it!)

I felt like I accomplished a good amount at lunch – a walk and some reading.

In the afternoon, I had a cup of hot vanilla chai tea. It really hit the spot.

I worked an extra hour at the office tonight, and then met my friend Jenn for dinner. We went to Gourmet India in Coolidge Corner for some great eats!  I had chicken tiki masala, a samosa, a piece of garlic nan and some rice. It was definitely a HUGE dinner – but I had not enjoyed Indian in months so I’m trying to feel too badly about it!

I had a great time eating dinner with Jenn and catching up. She let me take home a new book to read once I’m done with all of the books I’m reading right now. The new book is Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. Jenn loved it – has anyone else read it? Let me know what you think!

Ok, it’s after 10 o’clock and I want to read more of Loving Frank so I’m signing off for tonight! Catch ya’ll tomorrow!

Monday

Hi Everyone -

Well, you might remember the other day I wrote about eating breakfast. There are studies that snow it is most advantageous to your body to eat breakfast within the first thirty minutes you are awake. I never, ever accomplish this!  Usually I eat breakfast an hour and a half or two hours after waking up – most of the time when I get to work I eat breakfast at my desk. Don’t ask me why – it is a long story. I will write about it another time.

However – on Monday I had breakfast at home! Definitely within the first half hour of being active, too. It was definitely a breakfast on the run – I barely had time to snap a photo of it – but it was well worth it. I put one of Ben’s homemade, whole wheat, sugar free waffles in the toast oven and then smeared about a tablespoon of Teddy peanut butter onto it. Perfect Monday morning breakfast! It got me going out the door

For those of you who do not live in Boston, let me fill you in on what the weather was like on Monday. It was FREEZING! It was literally 15 degrees when I walked into work on Monday morning. Ugh. But the good news is – even though it was actually below freezing – I was able to convince two of my colleagues to go for a walk with me at lunch. They were totally brave! We were able to walk outside for 25 minutes – I was so impressed with our effort!

I have a fantastic new North Face parka that is totally amazing. I never realized I could actually be in love with a jacket. I am. It kept me soo warm during our walk! I had my heavy duty “Colorado” mittens on, a hat and my scarf wrapped around my face – all three of these things also helped me keep warm. Ahh winter in Boston – there’s nothing like it!

During our walk, it was great knowing that I had a bowl of turkey chili for lunch. I knew that once I finished our walk, and heated it up, I would be nice and toasty once again!

I am happy to report that lunch did not disappoint! I had to wait an extra half hour for lunch – there was a line for the office microwave ten people deep! But, at last, at one o’clock I had my chance in line.  It was worth the wait!

While I waited for the line to die down, I went back to my desk and enjoyed my carrots and cantelope. They did a great job of holding me over for a while!

I think that is all I ate until 4:30 on Monday afternoon. I definitely remember snacking on a Zbar – but I don’t seem to have a photo of it – weird!

After getting home from work (I had to work late – meh!) Ben and I went to the gym. I ran 1.75 miles and enjoyed the stationary bike for twenty minutes. During the bike ride, I finsihed Kristin Gore’s second book – Sammy’s House. I know, I’ve blogged about this before. I love the Sammy books – I hope she’ll write one more!

We did not get home from errands after the gym until 8:45. Wow. It was a long night! Once we were home, I quickly made a boca burger sandwich in the toaster oven (but the burger went in the microwave of course!) I melted one piece of low fat American cheese and had two pieces of Arnold’s double fiber bread. Love it! I totally did not take a photo because I was famished and not thinking of the blog. (Crazy, I know!)

Ok – well that’s a recap with photos of Monday.