Ok, so let’s start this post again by saying that I really missed you guys. Did you miss me? Thank you for sticking around with me these past few weeks (I loved reading every comment – reminded me I have a life outside of work too!). It was rough (if you couldn’t tell already) but yeah, it’s all good now. Insert happy dance here. Is there a special smiley face for that? I think the world needs one.

All right, silliness aside, I do have a serious question for you. But first…

BREAKFAST

2 ww waffles with Barney Butter, 2% greek yogurt and fresh blueberries

MID-MORNING SNACK

I went to the kitchen to grab some cottage cheese and dates and ran across some amazingly delicious looking brownies. So I had a brownie instead. No picture. That’s my dessert for the day

LUNCH

Iggy’s tomato mozzarella baguette sandwich. This is a reused photo (I originally was planning on having lunch at home but wanted to crank through work so I grabbed lunch out around 3pm. Yeah, you bet I stuffed it in my mouth as fast as humanly possible. oy)

DINNER

Late (and big) lunch = full stomach for a long time. Also = no workout and dinner almost in the dark. I kept it light…

Mixed greens, 1/4 avocado, chickpeas, rosemary almonds, shredded carrots, goat cheese and a lemon vinaigrette (dressing recipe is from The Best Light Recipe cookbook)

This salad was actually quite fantastic. Soon after I wanted something else though – enter Siggi’s orange & ginger yogurt. Can you see how thick it is?

This was my first time trying this flavor and I am a giant fan. Basically up until now vanilla was my go-to and this awesomely unique flavor is giving it a run for its money. It was decisively orangy with real ginger flakes inside. Tart, a little spicy. Delicious. Try it!

So here is the serious question for you. I read The New Rules of Lifting for Women upon some of your recommendations. To be honest, I didn’t think I’d learn much and I certainly did not want to start another diet. But after hearing about it several times I added it to my library queue and it came up this week. Surprisingly, I was really into it from the very first page. I LOVE lifting and haven’t done enough of it in a long time. Sure I do some lifting at bootcamp (and thankfully I’m still pretty strong) but nothing too pro-longed and nothing that’s just pure lifting. I’d say I didn’t learn much after all, but the idea of concentrating more on lifting again, really excites me. I keep thinking about starting to run again but end up canceling my workouts when they are on the schedule (something always comes up… or am I just subconsciously not into it?) but I am itching now to get to the gym to pump some iron. Workout A has my name on it. Here is my dilemma (3 dilemmas actually)…

1) I do not want to start another diet. I don’t want to count calories or protein grams. I am finally happy with trusting my body. Letting it choose (for the most part) what and how much fuel it needs (of course, don’t forget the treats!). Will this program work without their specific diet?

2) The book is VERY clear about eating a lot of protein. I would estimate it is 2 or even 2.5 times as much protein as I’ve been eating ever since incorporating more vegetarian meals into my diet and letting meat take the back seat. I am very happy with trying to focus on more protein rich foods (see a protein packed siggi’s yogurt as an example for a snack) but I’m on the fence about protein powder. It actually sounds like fun. I can think of all these ways of incorporating it… into smoothies, pancakes, my own protein bars, muffins but is it “real food?” Again, I’ve come a long way from gimmicky diet foods and learned to balance my meals “the right way.” Is protein powder cheating?

3) The book recommends maximum 3 workouts a week. Is that really enough? My instinct is to supplement (the workout don’t seem that tough, maybe I’m being silly right now. I may speak differently once I actually do them). Should I or is my brain getting in the way? Over-training is something they warn about.

Dilemmas, dilemmas. Tell me, blog friends – what are your thoughts on the subject?

PS – as mentioned we are going away for the weekend – there is no cell or internet reception at my PIL’s house so you may not hear from me again until Monday (I may be able to do a quicky post before we leave tomorrow… no promises though. I will be back for real next week). Would LOVE to hear your thoughts. Oh, it’s so good to be back. I’m freeeeeeee.

- It was my aunt’s birthday yesterday (thus leaving work early) – happy birthday, Dodina!!

- Roasted rhubarb is genius. I added it to my salmon/hummus/avocado wrap and it contributed a fun sour/tangy flavor to it. Yum

- Dinner at my first Persian restaurant, Lala Rokh, (remember it from here?) was not as great as I hoped it would be. Too much lamb, not enough vegetarian/seafood options as legit meals (lots of vegetarian apps though!).

- It is possible that I can get used to the taste of caramelized onions!!!! They were added to the bulgur with my dish and I didn’t even taste them. The bulgur was delicious! I need to research this one a little more. This could be a pretty awesome discovery (I hate my serious aversion to onions. Maybe there is hope for me after all )

- The look on my aunt’s face when the waiter brought out a giant chocolate cake that had her name on it (I pre-arranged that, brought one from Whole Foods) was priceless. I love surprising people with things I know they’ll like! Dodina is her nickname btw (doda = aunt in Hebrew, many years ago we just made Dodina into a word and called her that ever since).

- A spontaneous stop at Charlesmark Hotel for another drink with the hubs (because we were having too much fun on our walk home and didn’t want it to end) was one of the reasons I love living in the middle of a City. There is always something to do, you just have to get away from that office desk!

- Not randomly going for more food because I wasn’t stuffed (something I’m supposed to feel after a restaurant meal?) was my most proud personal accomplishment of the day.

- Bootcamp at lunch rocked (I’m getting better already!!). I told you I’ll make it there!

Thursday in pictures:

We shared the appetizers. The mushrooms and eggplants were phenomenal!

Have a great weekend! I’ll be working but I’ll definitely try to spend a little time in the kitchen so please stay tuned

- I am not a morning person. No matter how determined I am the night before, waking up in the morning is the hardest thing on earth… especially when I am thoroughly exhausted from the day before. So this morning I hit snooze for another hour. It was much needed.

- Bootcamp class during lunch. I felt a million times better after. Definitely worth taking a little extra time out of my day. Yay for exercise!

- Fresh tomatoes picked that very morning taste like a completely different vegetable (or is it fruit?). I dreamed of cutting one up and enjoying it with hummus all afternoon.

- A venti (read: giant) iced coffee with soy milk held my hunger for 4.5+ hours. The only reason I finally had dinner was because I knew I “needed to.” It was pretty awesome to plow through work without worrying about fighting off hunger. The flip side? Once I started eating, I couldn’t stop. No bueno. I think maybe going back to a medium sized coffee will keep hunger at bay without completely throwing my eating schedule out of whack. You see, I’m learning.

- The carpet in the condo is getting a little drier. Good news.

3:2:1 in photos. My internet is down so I can’t transfer the picture of my giaganto coffee but I’m guessing you know what that pretty much looks like.

*I also had the leftover Thai red curry stir-fry after finishing the brownie. PS – that was heavenly. Best Carly creation for sure!

How are you, guys?

As you may have guessed, we spent most of the afternoon/evening trying to clean up the mess. We extracted over 10 gallons of water just out of our carpet in the hallway. Thankfully Adam built up this little barricade between the living room and hallway so at least it prevented the water from going too far into the rest of the place (our bedrooms are dry). Our living room floors are 100% okay (we are still trying to figure out whether there is a risk of mold growing under there, but the carpet is soaking wet days later. The shop vac is unable to extract that much water at this point so we’re not sure what to do.

Anyways, we’ll get through it, I’m sure. Maybe we’ll at least become friends with our new neighbors out of this. They were extremely helpful – unclogged the sewer drain, brought lots of towels and around 7pm on Saturday even brought us dinner, fresh out of their oven. How incredibly nice is that?!!!

We weren’t going to stop until the mess was cleaned up, but when she came over with a hot pan of lasagna and meatballs, we realized we were actually starving. Talk about a random act of kindness. Adam and I couldn’t get over this. Definitely one of the nicest things a stranger has ever done for either one of us.

By the way, my laptop charger got submerged in water and is not currently working so I’m using Adam’s laptop which is painful (switching from a mac to a pc is not as easy as one might think), so I’ll try to keep it brief. Basically, this whole flood in our condo is a metaphor for my life. It been ridiculous at work, I feel like I can’t catch up with anything at home and the last drop in the bucket which I can’t ignore is that I gained so much weight recently that it’s affecting everything from how my clothes fit to my fitness level at the gym and how I generally feel about myself. I stepped on the scale last week and let’s just say that I haven’t seen that number in 4 years (!!!). I’ve been ignoring this issue since then but it’s time to clean up the flood mess!! I am not going to feel bad about myself, I’m going to do something about it. The plan of attack:

- Plan meals for the week and stick to the plan!! It’s ok to make minor adjustments based on taste preferences at the moment but I will stick to 3 meals + 2 snacks + 1 dessert (in moderation) equation until some progress is made in the weight dept.

- No mindless snacking/eating. My hours at home are going to get all out of whack over the next few weeks as I spend majority of my time in the office. That usually means stress eating. As mentioned above, I will make sure to stick to the pre-planned meals and snacks only. When life gets crazy like this, structure should be a good thing. I can do this!!!

- Continue making exercise a priority. I’ve been pretty good about this recently. I hope I can continue to keep it up despite the longer hours at work. I usually need a mental break mid-day anyways. A good sweat session should kill 2 birds with 1 stone (or something along those lines that’s less gross ).

How does this sound? I think it sounds good. I did A LOT of prep work last night for the next few days. Hopefully this builds up the momentum I’ll need.

So since I haven’t blogged in a few days, here are the highlights of this weekend’s eats.

Iggy’s ww bagel with olive jalapeno cream cheese and tomatoes

These tasted like sugar cookies with a pomegranate twist. Amazing!!

Beet/pesto/goat cheese and pecan panini + leftover b.good southwestern chicken salad

Spinach/artichoke hearts and mushroom calzone from Mangia (a treat on Friday night)

It was really delicious. We’ll definitely order from that place again!

I had the leftovers for lunch on Saturday. Yum!

+ Carly’s Confection 7 layer bar with a twist. So much white chocolate goodness. Another amazing treat for sure.

Sunday brunch at Sel de la Terre

Virgin bloody mary (I had to go to work!)

I had 2 of these. They weren’t very spicy but were definitely delicious.

Bread basket - I helped myself to a mini cinnamon roll and a cracker

For my entree I ordered the brioche French toast, strawberries, honey roasted almonds and vanilla butter.

It was really fantastic!! I removed that big butter blob and didn’t use any maple syrup because it was already rich and flavorful on its own. The strawberries were amazingly fresh and sweet as well. The sides of the french toast were perfectly grilled and the middle was kind of goey (souffle like) which normally would gross me out but it was so tasty that I didn’t care about texture. I would order this again in a heart beat (I ate half for brunch and then ate the other half later in the day as a “snack”).

Garlic/thyme smothered pork chop over qunoia and roasted rhubarb (adopted from this recipe).

It was great having a home-cooked meal again! Adam and I ate every morsel of our plates and I can’t wait for leftovers which I plan on making into a sandwich tomorrow.

All right, time for work! I apologize in advance for my random blogging schedule. I’m thinking of doing a picture collage at the end of each day and noting how my plan of attack is working so far. What do you think? Are you up for it?

I’ll be back with a bang in a few weeks. I have some giveaways in the works and a few posts that just need a little more research time. Happy Monday!

Funny enough, I was on the receiving end of a random act of kindness that same day when I got a package in the mail from one of my readers, Carly of So I Married a Chef. It included all sorts of amazing baked goods (see bottom of this post for pictures) and the best note!!

Carly probably didn’t even realize how touching this note was. I think with weather getting nicer, people are spending more time outdoors and less time reading blogs. I know it’s not personal but it’s still hard not to evaluate your “performance” given a drop in readership and comments. Her note reminded me of why I blog. Maybe some of you read because you like my meals, some of you feel like you are following a friend’s daily life and some of you feel inspired in other ways. I can’t believe that *I* can inspire and even help with self-acceptance. Seriously, Carly, you made my day. Heck, week/month. It’s been nearly a week and I’m still touched by this note. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! More on Carly’s treats below (yes, it is a food blog. I remember ).

Speaking of food, let’s check out today’s eats.

BREAKFAST

I’ve been waking up every morning this week craving nothing but Barney Butter. So today I doubled up on my serving.

FFL english muffin, 2 tablespoons of Barney Butter and fresh strawberries + coffee

I love this breakfast. FFL english muffins are so hearty and are a perfect vehicle for BB

MID-MORNING SNACK

Don’t worry, I washed it.

WORKOUT

Still going strong on the workouts front. Today was abs + bootcamp day. We had a substitute instructor who wasn’t great but it was still certainly better than nothing. I just hated doing 3 sets of everything. I like variety in my life and my workouts.

LUNCH

So we have a bunch of b.good leftovers at home. This morning I opened the fridge and wasn’t too excited about the possibility of eating the stuff for days. And then lunch time came and my taste buds quickly reminded me of my I love it so much!

Cousin Oliver slider, which I added chipotle cream to (SOOOOO good; I’m obsessed with that stuff)

Sweet potato fries

… and some southwestern chicken salad

I’ve said before that I could eat this stuff every day, and I think I am getting the chance to prove it. This was a fabulous lunch!!

DINNER

The stars: garlic scapes and beet greens

I’ve never heard of garlic scapes until this year and now I’m seeing them all over the blogworld. Have you ever had them? They are the shoots that grow out of garlic bulbs and they taste super galicky. I LOVE garlic so I bought just one of these guys at the farmers market for a little taste.

I took inspiration from this recipe of garlic scape and beet greens bruschetta, and sauteed both (removing the stems) in 2t of EVOO. I also added 1/2 a can of diced tomatoes and S&P to taste. This whole process took less than 5 minutes and the kitchen smelled heavenly. I LOVE the smell of garlic and EVOO!!

Next I topped 2 slices of Iggy’s whole wheat sourdough bread with 1 laughing cow wedge, the greens/scape/tomato mixture and junks of grilled chicken I picked off the b.good southwestern salad we had left.

Voila, dinner was served!

It was so comforting! Adam had a few bites and said it was restaurant quality. I was pretty proud of my little creation, especially since it came together in less than 10 minutes (which is good since I worked late tonight and was starving!).

For dessert, I finally reached into my stash of Carly’s confections.

I wanted to take a little bite of every one but instead settled on the smallest bar which happened to be the butterscotch & toffee blondie.

Wow. That’s kind of all I have. It was decadent and buttery and was even made with wholesome ingredients. Carly sells her baked goods at the Geauga farmers market in Ohio so if you live in the area, I highly recommend that you stop by there and stock up. I haven’t showed you the closeups of rest of the goods yet so be prepared to drool as I eat my way through them. They look absolutely incredible. Thank you, Carly, again! I feel so lucky!!

Unfortunately late nights at the office leave little time for play. I’m off to bed!

When was the last time you performed a random act of kindness? Also, have you ever received a special gift from a fellow blogger? I love how the food blog-world is such a close-knit community. It’s the best!

All right, now that we got all these logistics out of the way, let’s talk about something I’ve been super excited about lately – EXERCISE! A little while back I wrote kind of a sad post about struggling with overeating and just not feeling “it” in general. The very next day, I forced myself to go to the gym to sweat it out and haven’t looked back. I’ve been an exercise machine ever since. I can’t stop. It’s been amazing (and made a difference in my eating as well). Finally activating my 7-day pass at Healthworks just added more excitement. There are so many classes offered and I want to try every one of them. I’ve been going to Fitcorp (my current gym) and Healthworks and loving every second of it. I love when the snowball effect works in the right way. It’s all about finding something that you absolutely love (and that may change with time) – doing the “work” is then effortless. I actually look forward to every class!

So now let’s talk food. This is Sunday’s eats. I didn’t have a chance to blog about them earlier (and there is some really good stuff here!) so I actually left my camera at home on Monday and took a little break from picture taking. You still get to see a whole day’s worth of food (from Sunday) so I think it’s all good.

BREAKFAST

A few weeks ago, Lauren blogged about a healthy carrot cake sandwich that can be enjoyed for any meal of the day. I kept it in the back of my mind and even bought a special mango, pineapple, raisin bread that I thought would be great with it. I was right!

Look at this beauty from Sunday’s breakfast…

The back side

Since the sandwich just has a touch of sweetness, you don’t feel like you’re eating dessert for a meal yet it is still kind of exciting. I may have another one of these soon. Carrots are not an ingredient I use often in breakfast so why not throw it in a little more often?

WORKOUT

Body Pump at HW. Hurts so good…..

LUNCH

Beet salad, leftover L’Espalier chicken and feta wrap

Awesomeness.

SNACKS

Low fat cottage cheese + strawberries

L’Espalier macaron

Wow. I forgot how much I love macarons. I know this is a big no-no but I just had to take a picture of the inside. The paste was fantastic and the outside “shell” was so delicate, I definitely felt like I was eating a real treat.

Here is another TREAT. Sunday was Father’s Day of course so I baked my dad some pecan pie bars (recipe here). He loves nuts as much as I do (it runs in the family actually ).

Mmmmmmm – short bread crust, caramel-like pecan filling. These are not low fat/calorie by any means but SO worth it.

I probably had a square and a half throughout the day (I never actually had a whole one – just kept picking at it at different times). Oh, and if you make it – a little less sugar works beautifully. I used 1 cup for half a batch and it was perfectly sweet. If you love pecans, this is better than pecan pie (and way easier to make)!

DINNER

I mentioned before that my grandmas from Israel are here. Well, they still haven’t seen our new condo so I invited everyone over to enjoy some pecan bars and last minute, Adam and I decided to make dinner for everyone too.

Apps – pita chips, TJ’s garlic tzatziki (SO good!!) + grapes

The main fare – grass fed cheeseburgers (with whole wheat buns)

Toppings: tomatoes, avocado, pickles

Smashed grilled red potatoes (and sweet potatoes)

A big salad – mixed greens, carrots, grape tomatoes, grilled zucchini and pine nuts

My plate:

Everything was super yummy. For the burgers, btw, I almost always use 2T ketchup, 1T worchestershire sauce + 1/4t pepper for 1lb of meat. It makes really juicy and flavorful burgers. The potatoes were yummy as well.

A little dessert wine to end the meal. It tastes like white grape juice

And that was Sunday. Have you tried any new workouts lately? I’m going to a step class today – it’s been years. I can’t wait!!

BREAKFAST

The typical FFL english muffin with almond butter and fruit – upgraded!

FFL with almond butter, 2% greek yogurt, mango and a raspberry for garnish. So much more fun!

Freshly planted flowers. This time – full out blooming. Upgrade!

The tree that’s shedding all sorts of branches and green stuff… um, downgrade. Boo.

LUNCH WORKOUT

My favorite yoga class of all time. This one does not need an upgrade. It was perfect – as always.

LUNCH

Leftover sizzling haloumi with roasted asparagus and grape tomatoes - still incredible. Go here for the visual if you forget what it looks like.

AFTERNOON WORKOUT

I finally went to Body Pump at Healthworks today!! It used to be my absolute favorite class at my gym (Fitcorp) but they canceled it and I miss it terribly. Seeing Tina‘s arms in her recent post gave me the kick that I needed. I used to be a machine at that class and I’m happy to say that I still got it! I seriously had a grin the entire time during class… although let me tell you – this does not mean that I was slacking off. It was hard. My muscles were seriously shaking for at least an hour after the class. Awesome!

I was also super happy to finally have a few minutes to check out the facilities at the Back Bay location of Healthworks. I used to belong to the Chestnut Hill location right after it opened (6 years ago). I seriously thought it was like going to a spa every day. I brought girlfriends there just to show them around… and of course they always ended up joining. I was so sad to leave it when I moved to NY. The outdated Bally’s with meat heads at every corner was definitely quite the contrast. Anyways, I knew everyone always raved about Healthworks (and they have Body Pump after all so I will definitely be going back there, thanks to some free passes I received at the Healthworks Blogger Bash) but it was so great to finally see it for myself. Everything looked new (!!!) – it was super clean and well organized. I could see the numbers on the weights (yeah, Fitcorp’s weights are so old, on Saturday at bootcamp I used what I thought were 12lb weights because they seemed a bit bigger than the 10lbs… only to find out later that they were also 10′s but just a different shape. No wonder when it got hard and I picked up the “lighter” 10′s – it was still hard. Doh! … a definite upgrade). I had my camera but I didn’t want to be the weirdo taking pictures of the gym but it is awesome. Q-tips, cotton balls, hair dryers with all the attachments (like the diffuser!) in the bathroom – I just love all the girly touches (it IS a women’s gym after all). If you live in the Boston area and have never been to Healthworks yet, I recommend that you try it. Here is a 3-day pass that you can use. Anyways, sorry if it sounded like an advertisement – I just get excited about stuff like that (and no, Healthworks is NOT paying me or providing me with compensation in any form to say all this stuff).

DINNER

Remember the sandwich I had last Thursday on a pretzel baguette? I loved the bread but not the turkey with an unknown origin. Today mid-afternoon I stopped by the farmers market to pick up some dinner ingredients, including the yummy pretzelBaguette.

Fresh mozzarella, heirloom tomato, sun-dried tomato pesto on a pretzelBaguette

+ some (dying) snap peas

This dinner was definitely an upgrade from last week’s sandwich. It was so incredibly fresh, simple yet delicious… and made with all local ingredients

TREAT

Sour cream ice cream made healthier – upgrade! I subbed oikos nonfat greek yogurt for sour cream (but still used half-and-half). It froze a tad bit harder than the one with sour cream but still tasted very creamy and delicious.

I topped it with my favorite froyo toppings – mango + pecans (and a few raspberries we had left). I was in heaven.

OTHER SNACKS

2 medjool dates (they were super fresh and SO sweet and moist…mmm) + some fancy nuts I’ll blog about soon.

And the final upgrade – eating quality food, slowly and truly enjoying it, instead of hastily stuffing whatever I can find into my mouth… and crying about it later. This is day 8 of good eating that I can be proud of. Yes, I’m counting

Any upgrades in your life recently?

It felt a little strange being there – like I’m invading something. I grabbed a vanilla yogurt from the lovely Amy (I have yet to taste it) and almost walked away. And then I collected myself and introduced myself to Mr. Siggi (fun fact: Siggi is his first name). He was super nice and really excited to answer any of my questions. The story of how he started his yogurt business was unlikely many other small business start-ups. He didn’t care for his job, he missed his yogurt from homeland Iceland, so he decided to make his own… and then eventually began selling it. Siggi’s yogurt is now sold nationally at every Whole Foods. How’s that for realizing the American dream? (Siggi has been in the US for only 8 years!).

So here are a few interesting things I learned about chatting with Siggi…

• Siggi’s yogurt sources dairy from 6 small farms in New York. They have many standards, including those about humane treatment of animals. Although the dairy is not organic (it is cost-prohibitive at this point given the small scale of his operation), “the cows have names, not numbers.” Siggi spends some of his days visiting the farms.
• The plain siggi’s yogurt tastes pretty close to the original Icelandic yogurt Siggi missed when moving to the US. The flavored varieties are a little more unique.
• Siggi’s yogurt is a little more tart than most (in my opinion at least) because Greek and Icelandic-type yogurts are naturally tart but manufacturers add a lot of sugar to them to sweeten/mellow them out. Siggi’s yogurt uses just a touch of agave nectar and that’s why it is not sugar-laden.
• They work on new flavors all the time. I’m volunteering to be a taste tester.
• We talked about my Moldovian origin and about our Kefir. Apparently Kefir has a natural alcohol content. I’m going to google that soon.

Siggi was so nice. I LOVE meeting small business owners that are passionate about their business and do it right – without cutting corners at the expense of the consumer and our environment!

And here is a picture of me and Siggi – now you know what the man behind the yogurt looks like. He’s taaaaaaall.

Thank you, Siggi, for chatting with me… and thanks Judith for setting up this event. I think I may actually go to Healthworks today to work out. Imagine that!

Now onto yesterday’s eats…

BREAKFAST

The breakfast pizza is back!

Ww tortilla, almond butter, 2% TJ’s greek yogurt, 1/2 banana, raspberries, dried cherries and Kashi Golean cereal

A pizza slice, anyone?

I really love this breakfast. It’s so satisfying without being too filling.

LUNCH

Giant salad: mixed greens, grape tomatoes, radish, chickpeas, feta and Seta’s Mediterranean beet salad

This salad was fantastic -the beet salad was definitely the highlight. It came from the Copley Farmers market (Seta is there on Tuesdays) – the salad contains beets, dried mint, lemon juice and EVOO. Simple yet so flavorful. I LOVE beets!

WORKOUT

Yesterday’s workout was pretty random – I wanted to do a simple run outside but got bored so I turned around. I ran for a little over 20 minutes and then went to the gym and did 15 minutes of the elliptical there. I got my sweat on, so I guess that’s all I can ask of myself.

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK

Pita chips + Samira’s baba ganoush

Loved the crunch. I finished this container with a spoon after I ran out of the chips. Classy.

After meeting Mr. Siggi, I went to Joe’s to meet my co-workers for a few drinks. While there, I had one Hoegaarden and a glass of Cabernet + a little slice of margarita pizza.

I came home slightly buzzed and ready to chow down on more food.

DINNER

Dinner was based on this sandwich Shannon recently blogged about. You can’t really see the insides (bad blogger!) but this contains mustard, green apples, pickled green tomatoes and Cabot horseradish cheddar.

I know this sounds strange but it really is nicely balanced. Since the apples are only slightly sweet, they work well with the sour pickled tomatoes. I dare you to try it!

Dessert: cookies ‘n cream cheesecake bar

Plus 2 joe-joes (unpictured).

Phew – long post, fun day! Can you believe it’s Thursday already? I love love love Thursdays because of the Thursday Prudential farmers market. Plus I have really fun workouts planned for today. See you later, alligators. Don’t forget to enter my giveaway if you haven’t already.

BREAKFAST

Spinach, grape tomato and feta omelet

I used 1 egg and 1 egg white for this guy. As you can see, it completely fell apart but man, was it delicious. Salty from the feta, fresh from the pop of the tomatoes. Yum!

With the omelet I also had a little piece of toast, and grabbed this orange to go.

LUNCH

We had pizza at work during a meeting. I picked what I thought was a mushroom/artichoke pizza – that one looked wonderful… until I discovered a ton of pepperoni under the veggies. No picture but let’s just say I was picking at my food like a 5 year old. I had a whole mountain of peperoni on my plate and a million napkins all around me when I was done. So professional. I had 2 slices and stayed away from the super market cookies. I had something way better for me waiting in the fridge…

TREAT

Some of you were close with your guesses in my last post. I made cookies ‘n cream cheesecake bars following this recipe from Food for Living. I literally saw it yesterday morning and then stopped by the grocery store on the way home to pick up the ingredients and baked them that night. I like having healthier baked goods around so that I’m less tempted to stop by a bakery and buy something 10 times worse for me and way more expensive.

I resisted the urge to have a whole photo shoot of these guys. Lauren already did a wonderful job. The cheesecake bar tasted so delicious. The crust was thin and moist, the cheesecake was creamy with a touch of sweetness. I like that these are not overwhelmingly sweet. You can really taste the quality of the ingredients. I love making cheesecake bars – this recipe is a keeper!

WORKOUT

After work I headed to the track for a workout with Boston Performance Coaching. You may remember I’ve done it once before and was terribly hard on myself. It was a tough workout, one I wasn’t particularly excited to go back to (since I’m not even training for a race) but I wanted coach Ali to look at my running form again so I signed up. The Harvard Track was actually being used for some kind of a race so we went to this dinky little side track and did laps there. That made them much shorter and a lot more manageable. Still hard but doable. This time Christina (I think?) was coaching and she said my problem is my arms. I cross them while I run which is inefficient and hurts my back. I tried to relax my shoulders down this time. Something I must work on. She was right. I felt very accomplished after we finished and actually ended up walking back home too, which was a little over 3 miles. It was nice out and Adam was out so I took advantage.

Speaking of running – who wants to see super embarrassing race photos of me? You can find them here. Terrible stuff.

DINNER

Get ready for some more ugly food…

All I could think about was a quesadilla on my walk home. So that’s what I had. Here are the insides:

Corn, peppers, mushrooms

Spicy black bean sauce and grape tomatoes – plus Cabot horseradish cheese all over (I couldn’t find our grader so I used a microplane)

All folded and grilled on the pan – a giant mess! (the little dish is the stuff that felt out that I still wanted to eat )

It burnt instantly on one side and wouldn’t brown up on the other. It was exactly what I wanted, taste wise though. A little spicy and definitely veggie-full. I had some more spicy black bean dip with lime tortilla chips while prepping and after dinner. I think these need to be banned from our house. So good, I can’t handle it.

I ended up watching too much trashy tv before finally going to bed so I’m a bit slow this morning. If you haven’t already, don’t forget to enter my giveaway (here).

Have you had any ugly food lately that was still tasty?

I’ve been thinking recently about how my snacks got pretty boring lately. I often just grab a fruit to-go:

Sometimes I add something else for satiety…

Sometimes it’s fruit and nuts in dried form (a.k.a trailmix)

…sometimes it’s just nuts:

And then there are various bars that are oh so convenient:

Once in a while I get a little more creative and I LOVE snacks like that…

Baby carrots + almond butter

1/2 Food for Life english muffin with Barney Butter and 1/2 banana (one of my favorite snacks!!)

Ww toast with hummus and 1/4 avocado

Baguette with baba ganoush and tomatoes

Crackers with edamame hummus

Baby carrots with hummus and 1 hard-boiled egg

I need to revamp my snacks. What are your favorites?

Onto yesterday’s eats…

BREAKFAST

German fitness bread with cream cheese, kiwi, strawberries and pecans

Close up shot:

This was so hearty and satisfying. The fresh fruit was so sweet and paired nicely with the tangy cream cheese and earthy bread. Yum!

LUNCH

I decided to treat myself to a lunch at the farmers market yesterday. I think I’m going to start doing that once a week. It just felt so special… plus I’m supporting local farmers, right?

The Prudential Center farmers market (open Thursdays 11:00-17:00)

The swiss bakers table caught my eye

They had 2 kinds of sandwiches and the guy talked me into the lettuce, tomato, pickle & turkey (and mayo apparently) sandwich. He was 99% sure that the turkey was organic since supposedly the owners pride themselves on all ingredients being organic.

This guy came on a PretzelBaguette – oh my!

So I went on their website after getting back to my desk and I see nothing about the use of organic ingredients. I’m pretty sure this was NOT organic turkey but I still ate it. Not eating it would not make a statement other than a hungry Elina. The bread was the most amazing thing – a soft pretzel in a baguette shape. Fantastic. I’m going to choose the vegetarian option next time or just buy the PretzelBaguette and assemble my own sandwich. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this lunch!

SNACKS

1 banana, 1/2 apple pie larabar, 1 orange (after workout) <– see, boring!!

WORKOUTS

Pilates reformer class in the am. I’m still on the fence. I LOVE the studio (it’s Boston Body btw) but I think I need some heavy lifting/bootcamp classes in my life to feel complete. And since these classes aren’t cheap (I got a discounted deal for just a few sessions before), they would have to replace my gym membership and everything else. So we’ll see. I have a 30-days unlimited mat membership that I have yet to activate and I think it may be more my speed. Plus it’s a lot cheaper so if I absolutely love it, then it’s more likely to become part of my routine. I’ll keep you guys posted, of course.

After work, I also went to the gym for some cardio. I NEEDED it. Even that’s an understatement. I didn’t have my running shoes (only old sneakers) so I didn’t want to run (much) so I thought I’d try Janetha’s slow paced treadmill workout (with increasing inclines). Yeah, I thought it was going to be all walking but… I don’t know about you but I can’t walk at 5.0. I got to 4.6 but even that got a little too much at 8-9 incline. I basically stuck between 4.4 and 4.5 mph and used Janetha’s incline recommendations. After about 17 minutes I decided that running actually wouldn’t be so bad. I finished the 30 minutes at 6.6-6.7 mph at 1.0 incline. That felt good. I need to bring running shoes to the gym next time. It felt weird running in those babies. After the treadmill, I did like 3 minutes on this weird stepmaster type thing (you move the legs sideways) but it was sooooo boring I couldn’t handle it. I grabbed a jump rope and did that for maybe 30 seconds and then an elliptical with a tv freed up. Sweeeeet. So I did 17 minutes on that, again using Janetha’s “moves” – elliptical HIIT. I was sweaty and happy by the end. After a little stretching and it was time to get moving.

DINNER

My grandmas from Israel are in town so I rushed to my parents’ house after my workout (and a shower of course!). We ate dinner there.

Short-rib + polenta prepared by my dad. It was really good.

+ a little plate of hummus, tomatoes and pickled radish

I went back for more hummus (on 1/2 toast) and more pickled radish after this. Yum! And had a glass of Pinot Noir that my dad got me for my birthday. It was the same wine I had last time at Bin26 and declared it was my favorite wine of all time. It was still good last night. Not sure if I can give it the same mark though. Maybe I need to taste it one more time, just to be sure.

And that’s how you do it. Sorry for the crazy long post. I guess I was in a chatty mood.

Don’t forget to enter the RPS giveaway. I’ll declare the winner in my next post.