BREAKFASTS

TJ’s nonfat yogurt, banana, Bear Naked Hundred Mile Medley trail mix (cashews, dark chocolate chips, cherries, almonds and granola), some pb puffins and shredded coconut.  This trail mix is just ok (the granola part is kind of dry and the nuts are not roasted)…

Omelet with light feta, grape tomatoes and avocado (made with 1 egg and 1 egg white) + 1/2 pita:

Similar yogurt to the above (I was planning on using a different trail mix and only realized I used the same one after polishing off this bowl )… nonfat yogurt, 1/2 banana, Bear Naked hundred mile medley and some homemade cranberry sauce + a massive cup of coffee.

LUNCHES

This was a genius creation: ww pita with bbq chicken, avocado, laughing cow wedge and grape tomatoes.  Seriously, amazing!

I was stuck at home (nasty weather) with a limited food supply, so I reheated some frozen lentil soup.  Yum!

DINNERS

Turkey burger with cranberry sauce alla Meghann.  Sounds funky but it was really really good (I actually wish I added even more cranberry sauce!).  I added some laughing cow cheese for creaminess and used a ww english muffin instead of a bun + some sweet potato fries.  Perfect Friday night dinner!

Ww pasta shells with ground lean turkey, diced tomatoes and garlic.  Pretty delicious

SNACKS

There were many snacks, but none of them mindless!  That’s how I like ‘em

Two ak-mac crackers with a packet of Barney Butter and 2 prunes.   I really love this combo (and the sesame seeds on the crackers)!

I was only going to have 1/2…

But the other half was calling my name so I ate it too Honestly though, this was not the best brownie I’ve had, shocking given my love for everything peanut butter and Baked brownies’ reputation.

Something from my stocking…

I was able to only eat 1/2 of this guy (as planned)… at first it seemed a bit bitter, but once the sweet chocolate chip taste kicked in, it was quite tasty

A sweet sloop (sailboat shaped almond butter crunch, a mainsail and a jib of white chocolate floating in rich dark chocolate with pecan spindrift washing her sides):

I’ve been craving cheesecake lately so I bought a box of frozen 100 calorie cheesecakes the other day.  Man, these are tiny!  I topped this baby with some cherry preserve.  It did take care of my cheesecake craving!

And there were a few glasses of vino… a glass of Shiraz at Great Bay (that place is awesome!):

And a Cotes du Rhone something rather at Eastern Standard (that place was hopping!!!):

I didn’t finish either one of those glasses, but it was fun to “bar/restaurant hop”

WORKOUTS

I totally slacked off on exercise in the last week.  In fact, I did not work out for a whole 7 days, and I wasn’t even sick!!!  Just lazy… not a good excuse.  So starting on Christmas day, with my new HRM toy that my husband bought me, I’ve kicked it up a notch and it’s been awesome.  I already posted my stats from Thursday.  On Friday I did 55 minutes circuit training + 35 minutes ET (=6 HBBC points) and last night I did 4.5 miles on the treadmill, 10 minutes on the bike + 12.5 minutes on the ET (it was so freaking boring I had to get off after getting to a round number)… yesterday’s workout also totaled 6 HBBC points.  So to-date I’ve accumulated 58.8… can I get to 100 by January 4th??  Probably not, but I’ll keep trying

So yeah, 3 days of NMSC so far.  I’ve been able to stay away from office cookies on Friday and didn’t order any food in my slightly tipsy state last night (I knew I didn’t really need it!).  Tomorrow there will be more challenges at the office because more people will be back and I’m sure many of them will want to bring their cookies to the office so they stop eating them themselves.  I think I’m finally at the right mindset though… 2009 here I come, stronger (and leaner ) than ever!!

Before we got our Christmas tree, I stopped by an art gallery store to check out their ornament selection.  There were so many unique and absolutely gorgeous ornaments that I just had to take pictures of them.  Unfortunately they were outrageously expensive so I didn’t get any.  Maybe if I win the lottery one day

Aren’t these amazing?!

And these are some giant ornaments in my office lobby.  There a bunch of them all over the Prudential Mall in Boston.  So cool!

And here is my husband cutting the protective plastic around our first Christmas tree ever  

And our tree all lit up.  It looks really pathetic in this picture, but actually it’s really cute and made the last few weeks very festive

Ok, onto food and fitness…

I woke up this morning ready to be super healthy.  I was so excited about it!  So today I’m happy to report was so so good.  I just love being healthy!  It makes me feel a billion times better than stuffing my face!!!

BREAKFAST

After opening some gifts from my husband (I got a brand new camera and an HRM – yay!!!!!!) while drinking coffee, I made one my lovely yogurt parfaits.  It’s been what seems like ages since I’ve had one.

In this beautiful bowl (picture still taken with the old camera – not bad) was about 3/4 cup of yogurt, 1/2 banana, some strawberries and blueberries and a serving of Bear Naked Continental Divide Blend trail mix (banana chips, chocolate chips, walnuts, almonds and chocolate granola).  Yum yum yum.

Here is the package of the trail mix.  I liked it a lot!

WORKOUT

After digesting my breakfast for a few hours, I head to the gym in our building.  It is so convenient having it right there… I really have no excuse of ever skipping workouts!  I used my new HRM, so I have some workout stats… I love knowing exactly how many calories I burn!  The HRM was about 25% below what the treadmill and elliptical showed!

I like having a plan before I go to the gym, so today I came with a printout of this 3s and 5s treadmill challenge.  I looked at Melissa’s speeds and thought they were at about my fitness level so I started following her numbers exactly but after the first set, realized I could kick it up a notch without jeopardizing my ability to finish the run so I increased everything by 0.3 mph, oh and I also ran all the recovery intervals at 6.3 mph.  This was so much fun… I’ll definitely do this again.  Hopefully I can increase my speed and add some inclines over time!

After 45 minutes on the treadmill (or exactly 5 miles), I jumped on the elliptical and did another 30 minutes there.  I think the elliptical is just so boring… it took a lot of convincing to stay on for the full 30, but I did it!  Here are my stats:

Duration: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Calories burnt: 701

Ave heart rate: 151 (I think that’s a bit low but this thing is new so I’m still figuring it out)

Max heart rate: 198 (whoa)

HBBC points today: 7

Total HBBC points: 46.8 

SNACKS

I wasn’t too hungry after my workout so I just had a snack before making lunch.  I’ve decided to give Meghann’s orange + pb combo a try. I gave it a little twist by using Peanut Butter and Co.’s Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter.  This is about 1/2 orange with 1/2T of pb:

It’s official, peanut butter goes with everything… including orange!!  The juicy orange was actually a nice contrast to the creaminess and heaviness of the peanut butter.  De.licious!

Another snack later in the afternoon… a Harry & David pear.  I grabbed one from a goodie basket at work yesterday, so it got a little bruised on its commute home.  It was still juicy and delicious.  Harry & David pears are definitely the best (honestly I wouldn’t be able to justify the price though)!

LUNCH

For lunch I planned on making a salad since my husband was eating the leftover calzone (I usually try to eat salads or other “funky” foods he wouldn’t be interested in when he’s on his own with food).  We had a pretty pathetic amount of mixed greens, though, so I brainstormed and came up with this “salad.”

This looks just like a pile of food, but here is what you really see:

• mixed greens dressed in 1 teaspoon of Annie’s organic goddess dressing
• 1/4 avocado
• grape tomatoes
• small handful of macadamia nuts
• 1/2 block of baked tofu (sprinkled in chili powder and salt, baked at 375* for 35 minutes)

This made me so full!  I think it was the fat from the avocado and the nuts.  This was about 300 calories but I was seriously stuffed for hours (almost in an uncomfortable kind of stuffed).

DINNER

My husband was craving buffalo chicken, so I suggested making little pita pizzas with buffalo chicken.  They came out super delicious!  Un-pocketing the ww pita makes for a great base for TWO individual pizzas… so efficient

Here is my plate with 2 large carrots on the side for some veg:

Close-up of the pizza:

Oh, I used Trader Joe’s pizza sauce (it’s really great!) and 2% Italian shredded cheese (1 oz worth).  I burnt it a little but it was still super yummy!  I will definitely remember this idea when I’m craving a greasy slice – this one was enjoyed 100% guilt free!

And after blogging, I’m going to make some tea and have this baby:

This guy was in my stocking this morning.  The snowman is so cute

All in all, I am so happy about getting back on track.  I just feel so happy!  I’m restarting my No Mindless Snacking Challenge (NMSC).  Today was Day 1 (of a second streak attempt).  I home to make to the end of December (and then I’ll start the January NMSC).

Merry Christmas to everyone again!  I hope you are having a wonderful day, whether you celebrate it or not (you probably still got the day off )

BREAKFAST

I really love feta in omelets and since I had an open package of feta today’s breakfast was an obvious choice.  I sauteed some grape tomatoes with some spinach, added 1 egg and 2 egg whites and 1 oz of light feta.  Yum!  I also toasted 1/2 of a Food for Life english muffin for a side + made a large cup of coffee with skim milk and agave nectar.

SNACK

Breakfast was a little low in calories so I was ready for a snack soon after I was done.  I missed my yogurt so I made a tiny bowl with 1/2 cup of nonfat TJ’s European style yogurt, a clementine and a handful of Erin Baker’s double chocolate granola.  So yummy!  I love yogurt!!

LUNCH

Simple: a sandwich with 2 slices of turkey, 2 tablespoons of homemade hummus and grape tomatoes and a large carrot on the side.

I <3 hummus!

BAKING!

When you have a banana that looks like that, what do you do?

Hehe, it looks like a monster!  Well, I mashed it and made it into cookies using this recipe from Simply Recipes found on the Bread & Honey blog.  The pictures just looked so good, I couldn’t resist making a batch of my own

My 1 banana produced 1/3 of a cup of mashed banana, so I made 1/3 of the recipe.

I also opted to use 1/2 pecans and 1/2 chocolate chips for my “mix-ins.”  Here are some of the progress pics so you feel like you were in my kitchen today

Creaming the butter and sugar:

Adding the egg and flour…

Folding in the pecans and chocolate chips…

Divide the batter into 10 cookies (30 if you make the entire recipe), and pop in the oven for ~12 minutes:

Here they are post baking, cooling on the cooling rack:

Closeup:

The kitchen smelled absolutely incredible at this point!!  Of course I had to make some tea and have 1 (ahem, I mean 2) cookies

I didn’t photograph the second one… I grabbed one of the “uglier” ones.  These were very light and fluffy – very cake-like.  I think I realize that I prefer cookies that are more dense, but because they are light they are also lower in calories, so that’s why I could have 2 of them guilt-free.  There is definitely something to say for that.  If you like fluffy (muffin-top-like cookies) these are yummy and are a nice alternative to banana bread if you have some overripe bananas.  I probably won’t make them again, but I had fun making them and will enjoy polishing them off (hopefully with my husband’s help) over the next few days.  Oh, and they are now resting on a pretty holiday plate.  I love it!!

DINNER

Since like I mentioned before I haven’t left my apartment today (meaning no grocery trip either), I had to whip something up from what we had.  I dug deep into my freezer and found this:

There were 2 little eggplant cutlets left in the box (this is from Trader Joe’s – not sure if you can see that from this pic).  So I made some baked zitti in my toaster oven.  I cooked 4oz of ww pasta for 13 minutes, while that was going baked the eggplant patties according to package directions and cooked up some diced tomatoes with garlic, oregano, basil and red pepper flakes to make a chunky tomato sauce.  Once the pasta was done, I tossed it with the diced tomatoes, divided into two bowls (1 for me and 1 for my husband), topped each pasta bowl with a slice of eggplant, 1/4 cup of part skim ricotta and 3/4 oz of 2% cheddar cheese and baked it right in the bowls in the toasted oven (for maybe 5 minutes and then turned it to broil for a few extra minutes until the cheese browned).  Yum!

Here is my first bite… cheesy goodness!

This was very delicious.  Baked zitti with eggplant used to be one of my favorite deliveries back in college, although I used to eat a huge tub of it in one sitting.  This was nicely portion controlled.  Much better!

And a little bit later I had a square of Ghirardelli 72% chocolate square.  This is just ok.  Honestly tastes slightly waxy to me.  I forgot I’m not a fan of this stuff.  I want more chocolate now but trying to resist the urge!

Total calorie count for now is 1567, although I have a feeling I’m going to have something a little later (hopefully not but I can’t make any promises).  I’m trying to decided whether I want to go out with my husband and his friends or stay at home and take some thing off my to-do list.  I want to stay home but I’m afraid of being alone with a house full temptations and no-one but myself to stop me from indulging.  I’ll report tomorrow on how I did.

*Edited to add* I stayed at home and I am finally caught up on all of my blog reading.  Yay!!!  I am also extremely proud to report that the only thing I had was lots of water.  I didn’t even give myself the option of having anything else… at first reading all the food blogs made me a little hungry but then I just forgot about it.  So the calorie count for the day is still the number noted above, and today was officially my Day 4 of NMSC!!  I told you I do well with streaking challenges  I’m going to try to go to bed soon.  I want to take a hot vinyasa class tomorrow morning.  I haven’t done that in months and I’m actually really looking forward to it!

BREAKFASTS

My work was having a pancake breakfast party at 9:30 am, but there is no way I could wait until then to eat.  So I started the morning with 1/2 bagel with some cream cheese and a “work coffee.”  It was hard not to go back for the second half but I knew I needed to save room for the official breakfast.

And for the pancake breakfast of course I had to have some pancakes  I got 1 banana and 1 chocolate chips, plus a bunch of fruit.  They went all out for this… there was sausage and bacon, mini muffins and all sorts of other goodies.  I tried to behave somewhat and had “only” this plate (still a million calories right there, I’m sure) and instead of having seconds of the pancakes topped with butter, maple syrup and whipped cream I just had another handful of the grapes (not pictured).

Free food like that is hard to resist, and seriously when everyone else was going back for more I had to really fight the urge to do the same.  I knew this was plenty of food though (especially since I already had 1/2 bagel beforehand) so I kept my NMSC in mind and didn’t eat more just because I could.  Honestly, even this plate of food was sitting like a rock in my stomach for a few hours.  No sweat, I felt much better after an awesome workout

WORKOUT

I took a 15 minute abs class at the gym followed by a 45 minute boot camp class.  While waiting for the instructor to start the classes I did a few quick jump rope intervals.  For a little extra something I also did 15 minutes on the elliptical.  The gym was still super hot… do you burn more calories when you work out in the heat?  Not sure about this, but all I know is that I was a sweaty mess once again, which at least made me feel like I had an extra hard workout!

Total HBBC points for the day: 4.5, running total: 20.45

LUNCH

Lunch was a bunch of leftovers, cleverly (if I say so myself) combined to create a perfect low calorie meal.  In the morning I chopped up some leftover cured ham that I bought for the quiche from a few days ago, I also had some chopped up broccoli from the same quiche dinner.  Those came in a little baggie to work with me.  At work I had some leftover Pacific Natural Foods cashew carrot ginger soup (1 cup’s worth) and a carrot (which I also chopped up before steaming in the microwave).  Veggies were microwaved with a tiny bit of water for a minute, then ham and soup were added and microwaved for another minute and a half, and voila… yummy lunch

The Pacific Natural Foods cashew carrot ginger soup was pretty intense on its own, but with all these veggies and meat it was absolutely perfect.  I haven’t found a Pacific Natural Foods’ soup that I didn’t like!  Their stuff is really great!!

And for dessert I had the tiny brownie I snagged from a meeting the day before.  I was so proud of myself for not eating it right away!  It waited for the perfect moment and I really REALLY enjoyed it.  I know in my previous post I said that a seven layer bar may be giving brownies a run for their money, but after eating this baby I may be taking it back  This was just so good!  Ok, maybe there is a place in my heart for both of these treats

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK

Around 4:30 I was hungry again… I think my metabolism is crazy these days (I’m surprisingly not gaining weight).  I had the rest of my bagel with 1/2 of Barney Butter packet, some strawberry jelly and 1/2 banana.  Yum!!!!

DINNER

The snack above once again really stuck to my ribs… it almost sabotaged our dinner plans.  Not good!  Thankfully right before we were about to cancel our reservation (which my husband was not happy about), my stomach started growling and let me know it was ready for another meal again.  We were both happy!  Who wants to sit at home on a Friday night?  Not me!

Our dinner reservations were at Gaslight.  My husband had a rough work week and was really looking forward to going out for a nice meal and a few delicious drinks  Gaslight received great reviews across the board and we had high expectations for the place.  I’m happy to report we were not disappointed!  We got there a little after 7:30 and the place was packed!  We waited for a few minutes until being seated.  Our table was honestly in the worst location (my husband was sitting literally in the aisle) but we quickly forgot about it.  We started with a few cocktails… mine was Gaslight’s signature drink called Fleur De Lis made with Parfait Amour Violet Liqueur, gin, Mathilde Peach, white grape juice and a champagne float.  Here I am with my first beverage…  This thing was strong!!

For an appetizer my husband ordered the french onion soup (eww!!!!) and I went with the shaved beet root salade with with toasted walnuts, watercress, red onion, dijon, and creme fraiche (no onions for me of course).

This was quite yummy.  I love mustard but I’ve never had it with beets, a very unique combo in my opinion.  The walnut pieces were like a special treat… I definitely dug them all out right away  I only tasted the creme fraiche but this was so flavorful it really didn’t need it.

Oh when we got the food the waitress also brought a bag with a baguette fresh out of the oven.  I loved the presentation – made me feel like I was back in Paris

I had a hunk of it (no butter for this girl):

I was really in a fish mood, so I went with the Sautéed skate with haricots verts and caper beurre noisette.  Here is when a menu in French, as fancy as that is, was inconvenient.  For some reason I was expecting a grilled piece of fish (ok, I guess it said sauteed but it tasted kind of fried) with root vegetables and capers.  As you can see below I got some potatoes and green beans… and there were no capers in sight.  There was, however, plenty of butter!  So.much.butter!  It tasted delicious but I thought I was getting something a lot fresher (and healthier).  Oh well.  I tried to not dip in the butter sauce but I did end up eating everything on the plate (except for 2 bites of the fish I gave to my husband).  I guess I liked it

We also got 1/2 carafe of wine.  Here are all of my beverages.. martini, wine and water.  My husband helped me out with the alcoholic ones.  I’ve become a very slow drinker (which I’m definitely happy about!).

And of course I had to have dessert!  I wanted to order the molten chocolate cake, but the waitress was very excited about the Chocolate beignets with Creme Anglais.  I decided to go with something different, especially since she mentioned there was chocolate ganache inside those babies.  Ok, it didn’t take much convincing on her part

These things were basically cocoa colored fried dough balls with chocolate ganache inside… and the creme anglais tasted like melted down vanilla ice cream.  I am not a big fan of fried food so these were pretty yummy but not my style.  I appreciated the idea of them, though.  I had 2 out of 5 (my husband happily had the rest – he loves fried food!).

All in all, this was a lot of fun and we’ll definitely be back!  Great place!

After dinner we headed to a bar at Rocca next door.  I’ll feature my drink in a separate post!  What a fun night!!!!

Oh, I am proud to say there was no mindless snacking at all.  I passed up on trail mix popcorn hanging around the office (and of course second/third helpings of the pancakes and other munchies)… and despite being a little tipsy when I got home, I did not hit up the container with chocolate covered edamame.  This is day 3 of my NMSC streak

BREAKFAST

I skipped another day of yogurt parfaits and had oats instead, but I still couldn’t stay away from my favorite trail mix.  Here is today’s bowl:

In this lovely bowl is 1/3 c of rolled oats made with 1/3 cup of skim milk, 1/3 cup of water and 1/2 banana (cut thinly).  I microwaved it for about 3 minutes on high and topped with my fave! And of course I had a cup of “work coffee”: coffee with a pod of half&half and a teaspoon of agave nectar.

PRE-WORKOUT SNACK

Simple- Ellie Krieger’s energy bar.  Yum!

This is when my little “No Mindless Snacking Challenge” (NMSC) helped out.  They had a meeting at my work this morning and had a bunch of leftover sweets.  This stuff is my absolute favorite – I really really love it and hardly ever can resist it.  I grabbed 2 little cookie bars on my way to the gym, but instead of eating them right away and skipping my workout because I was too full, I put them in my desk drawer, and hit the treadmill hard to burn some calories.  Much better!

WORKOUT

I never completed my planned 3 mile run yesterday so I had to make it up today.  Unfortunately, the gym was like a sauna again today.  What is going on?!!  I remembered what’s waiting for me back in the office and decided to push through… and I did it!  I ran 3 miles at a “random” setting at level 2 (incline was randomly switching from 0 to 2.0, I think) at 6.6-7.5 mph.  I was dripping sweat like crazy.  Seriously it was SO HOT!  I never run outside (well, I ran 3 times outside in the last few years of running) so I’m not used to weird temperatures.  In fact there are 2 reasons why I’m scared of running outside: hills and crazy temps.  Today I conquered both  I also walked for 0.25 miles and then jumped on the elliptical for 30 minutes.  So that’s 5.25 HBBC points, if I’m not mistaken… 15.95 total so far.

LUNCH

Lunch was leftover crustless ham, veggie & cheese ham from last night, this time 1/4 portion.  I was planning on also having a pear with it, but instead enjoyed my little office treat

This must be a good week, because I’ve had two seven layer bars two days in a row (from two different sources).  The first time I tried this bar (from this exact bakery last year) I fell in love with seven layer bars.  I always go for brownies when presented with different choices but seriously this guy is making me rethink that.  It was absolutely amazing and I slowly enjoyed it with a nice cup of tea.

Not sure if you noticed above, but I mentioned I grabbed two little cookie bars before going to the gym.  Yes, I also grabbed another 2-bite brownie and I did not eat it!  It is still in my desk drawer all wrapped up waiting for its fate tomorrow.  This was a huge step for me, but I knew that eating both would make me sick and that would kind of qualify for mindless snacking/eating and you know I wanted to call today “day 2″ of the NMSC! So far this challenge is working!!

DINNER

My lunch kept me full for many hours.  There was no need for an afternoon snack.  I did go out for a quick drink with some co-workers after work and had a glass of Californian Cabernet Sauvignon (not pictured).

I wasn’t sure how late I was going to stay at the bar tonight so I didn’t plan anything for dinner.  No worries, though, because I was craving a salad with the yummy hummus I made last night.  Here is my plate:

It was kind of mediterranean inspired, since hummus was the main star.  My salad had 2 cups of spinach dressed in 1 tablespoon of Annie’s goddess dressing (it has tahini as one of the ingredients so it paired perfectly with the hummus), 3.5 oz of grilled chicken, 2 tablespoons of homemade hummus, some grape tomatoes and 1/2 oz of light feta cheese.  Simple and delicious.

And for “dessert” I had a nice big pear:

And a few hours later, I had real dessert – 1/2 serving of TJ’s chocolate covered edamame.  Who was I kidding with that pear for dessert?!  This girl needs chocolate!

Total calories for the day: 1644

Yay for healthy living!  Tomorrow is Friday… can’t wait!

So I was tossing and turning last night when I was trying to fall asleep.  I just couldn’t figure out how to prevent “these types of days” from happening.  After a while I fell asleep and this morning I was ready to have a better day, but I was still upset about my silly snacking preventing me from reaching my weight loss goals.  Well, on my way to work (I walked there for the first time in a while and it was really nice to just have “me time” with no distractions), I got it!  I figured it out!!!  I do really well with streaking challenges, but the ones I’ve done in the past despite being very “effective,” were kind of restrictive so I ended up bingeing at some point and erasing all of my hard work.  So this time, I am starting a new streaking challenge that is exactly what I need: “No Mindless Snacking” Streaking Challenge.  The rules are simple, I began this today and successfully avoided all mindless eating.  So today counts as Day 1.  I’ll keep the countdown going – if I break it I have to start at day 1.  These types of mind games usually work for me… it’s just taking one extra step of thinking twice about what I’m about to do (or not do) and brings out the competitive side of me  It also means that as long as I am aware of what I’m doing, I get to have little indulges.  Today this challenge came in handy twice (I avoided unnecessary temptation for no reason and enjoyed a nice little treat without feeling guility about it!).  Perfect!

I’ll start fresh every month as to not have too much pressure on myself.  Sounds good?  Anyone wants to join me?  There are no prizes here, but your body may thank you for it!

Now let’s get on with food and fitness…

BREAKFAST

I absolutely love yogurt combos, but I may have been overdoing on them lately and I don’t want to bore you guys to death with the same old food.  So, I made another classic: 2 toasted waffles with 1/2 banana and 1T of nut butter.  I typically use a Barney Butter packet for this delicious breakfast “sandwich” but since I was home this morning, I figured I shouldn’t waste a portable packet and measured out a tablespoon ofpeanut butter instead.   Well it’s official bloggies, I am addicted to Barney Butter!!!  When I first tried it, I thought it was just ok, but liked how portable the little packets were so I stocked up.  I’ve been eating them for months (and enjoying them very much) but I never realized just how attached I got to this lovely goodness.  The peanut butter just wasn’t as good today.  I totally missed my BB!!!  I guess that means I need to order up some jars

Midway through eating, I added some cherry preserve to it to add a little more sweetness.  That made it more delicious!  And I also had a very large mug of chocolate coffee with skim milk and agave nectar.  Yum!

WORKOUT

I was itching to burn some calories since I never made it to the gym last night.  I am so used to working out that after an unplanned day off, I cannot wait to get back to it!  I’m so glad that I really love exercising!!!  At the gym, I took an abs class, a Group Power class (some serious lifting to the beat of the music!) + ran 1.5 miles (and a cool down 0.1 mile walk).  I was actually planning on running for 3 miles but the gym was ridiculously hot (it was 60* out today and I think they were heating it like it was in the teens).  I was dripping sweat and thought I was going to pass out so I stopped half-way.  I hate when random things like that happen!  Anyways, I still got a few points towards HBBC!  So let’s see how I did today…

- walk to work = 1.3 miles = 1.3 points

- 15 minutes abs = 0.5 points

- 30 minutes lifting = 2 points

- 1.6 miles run + walk = 1.6 points 

Total for today: 5.4, Running total: 10.7

LUNCH

I am seriously not hungry today.  I had my breakfast a little before 8am and finally made lunch at 3pm.  I wasn’t even very hungry then, but figured it was time to eat.  I guess I was using my stored energy…

For lunch I used some leftovers: last Arnold’s sandwich thin with 1/2 can of sardines and a laughing cow wedge + a spinach/grape tomato/cucumber salad with 1T Annie’s goddess dressing.  It

was quite nice.

And the best part… dessert!  My co-worker brought some 7-layer bars that his girlfriend, Katie (also my new friend and blog reader) made for his birthday last night.  She warned me they were coming so I saved some room for them today.  I absolutely love 7-layer bars – how can you not, it has all the best goodies all in one bar!  Here is the little guy.  It was super sweet and intense so I left a few tiny bites, just to be good.  I enjoyed this a lot!!!!

DINNER

Again, no snacking in between meals today.  I made dinner because my husband was hungry but I could have just gone without.  I made the Crustless Ham, Veggie & Cheese Quiche using this recipe from Anna of Cookie Madness.  Anna very rarely posts recipes that are not dessert, so I knew this was going to be a good one!  My husband was so excited about it, he was practically giddy

I doubled Anna’s recipe because it was very low calorie (and I already had a serving size mishap this week!) + I wanted leftovers.  I used a little bit more ham  than Anna (around 5oz for the doubled recipe) and of course I didn’t add onions, but otherwise I didn’t get creative here and just followed the recipe.  Here are a few pics of the process…

All the veggies and ham layered in the pan:

Egg & cheese mixture:

Combine the 2:

Add the other half of cheese after baking for about 35-38 minutes…

And here it is all ready

And my portion (only 1/6 of the recipe because I really wasn’t hungry):

I thought this was pretty good, but my husband looooved it!!!!  He ate 1/4 of the pan, then went back for more!  I would add more ham between the potato and veggie layer because I felt like the ham was just a little bit on the top and it was the best part.  I think next time I’ll also add some tomatoes and/or mushrooms.  My husband will definitely be requesting this again, so we’ll see if I can get a little more adventurous next time and add my own spin to it

RANDOM “COOKING”

I had a little bit of time on my hands tonight so I made some hummus.  I used this very simple (and healthy) recipe (*notice there is no olive oil involved here*).  It came out absolutely perfect and even my husband (who would never think about eating hummus) tried it and then got a few more crackers to sample the goods.  I only had a few licks of the spoon to make sure it tasted ok.  It was really really good and took about 5 minutes to make and made a huge batch.  I really prefer this to store-bought hummus and it’s so much cheaper!  Here is the whole batch (I sprinkles it with some more paprika just to make it pretty )

And that’s that for today!  I’m off to relax a little before bed time.  See you tomorrow!

Oh, total calories for the day: 1073 (I know it’s super low but I seriously cannot eat today; I’m sure tomorrow I’ll be back to normal )

*Edited to add* I just had a gala apple.  Yum! ]]> http://healthyandsane.com/2008/12/i-figured-it-out/feed/ 11