So I’m sure you are dying to know about the giveaway I am referring to in the title of this post. Let me tell you all about it. A few weeks ago I received a copy of Substituting Ingredients by Becky Sue Epstein.

I was really excited to get this book because I swear – I realize I’m out of something mid-cooking nearly every week!! Well I guess sometimes I realize I have something slightly different from what the recipe calls for and I’m not sure if I can just substitute it one-to-one.

This actually happened the day after I got the book. I realized the brownie recipe I was testing called for dutch processed cocoa… and that I only had the standard kind. Oops. I grabbed the book – it had subs for cocoa powder in it but only for the regular kind and said 1/2 cocoa powder for baking could be substituted with 1/2 semi-sweet chocolate chips. Good to know but not exactly what I needed. So I got dressed (I was still in my pajamas) and went to the grocery store to look for dutch processed cocoa… and they didn’t have any. I even tried 2 different stores. Nope. A little googling solved that problem and the brownies turned out great.

So this book did not save me the first time around but I did browse through it and see how it will surely be useful (despite noting a few other misses – for example a sub for white wine for cooking was not there). There are lots of standard ingredients substitutions for things like light corn syrup, honey (for baking), and fish sauce (<- these are things I’ve looked up in the past). There are also some interesting subs for random ingredients – for example Becky suggests subbing green peppers, green beans and eggplant for okra (although notes the texture will be different with eggplant). My favorite tips are the ones for measurement conversions of dry to cooked ingredients. How many times do you see recipes that say 2 cups of cooked rice or pasta? Unless I already have that on hand, the more likely case is that I have to make some. How much dry rice/beans/pasta should I cook? This book provides equations for all these and more. Very cool.

So here is another cool part. The company sent me 2 copies by mistake. I received this one a few weeks ago and then got another package (with the same book) a few days back. This means one of you lucky Healthy and Sane readers can receive a copy of this book too!

Here is how:

1) Leave a comment on this post – anything goes.

2) If you have a blog, let others know about the giveaway and link back to this post.  If you don’t have a blog, tell someone about this giveaway and let me know that you’ve done so (after they enter the giveaway by commenting). You can also tweet about this giveaway (my twitter name must be included to qualify – that’s @healthyandsane fyi ) *Either one earns you a bonus point*

3) If you have a blog, add Healthy and Sane to your blogroll or follow me on Twitter (if I’m already on your blogroll, let me know – it counts!).  If you don’t, shoot me an email and give me some feedback on my blog. *This also earns you a bonus point*

*Please note this giveaway is open for US readers only.*

I will randomly choose and announce the winner on June 18th. Good luck!

Now let’s quickly cover today’s eats. SO good!

BALANCED BREAKFAST

Last banana zucchini spelt muffin (I had some frozen)

Fresh local strawberries

Oikos. It was extra good today for some reason.

BALANCED LUNCH

I’m still sore today so I decided to come home for lunch instead of going to Rope’n class. But not before I stopped by Whole Foods. I was dying for some sushi so I got some veggie maki since it’s Meatless Monday.

Brown rice carrot, avocado and cucumber maki

+ kale massaged with lemon and 1t basil EVOO + S&P - I was craving that too.

This was exactly what I wanted. I love when healthy meals really hit the spot like that.

Snacks at work included 1/2 apple pie larabar (mid-morning) and 1/2 giant banana with 1T Barney Butter (mid-afternoon). I was definitely hungry for dinner by the time I got home.

BALANCED DINNER

You may not recall when I raved about a tilapia dish with lemon caper sauce and roasted asparagus and grape tomatoes but this meal hasn’t left my mind ever since. Cara was responsible for this genius recipe (which can be found here) and suggested that I have to try it with haloumi as she originally posted it. So I finally did today.

Have you ever had haloumi cheese? It basically tastes like a slightly milder feta that you grill. Absolutely delicious. This dish was fantastic again. Can I put it on the favorite recipes list again? I think I can… and I am!

TREAT

One joe-joe (aka a chocolate oreo cookie minus the junk ingredients)

It may have something to do with what just came out of my oven

You’re going to have to wait for the next post for more details on that! Any guesses what it might be?

Before we get to the fishiness, let’s talk…

BREAKFAST

Nonfat yogurt, 1 apple, TJ’s nutty American trek mix, Zoe’s granola

This trail mix makes my yogurt bowls every time. Thank you, TJ’s, for bringing it back.

MID-MORNING/PRE-WORKOUT SNACK

Last chocolate peanut butter granola bar

I really enjoyed these but I’d like to make something a little lower in sugar. I’m normally ok with a little more sugar than usual before a workout because I feel like the simple carbs will be used for fuel right away, but sometimes I like to eat granola bars as a snack (not necessarily before a workout) so it would be good to have something a little healthier on hand. Lauren’s chocolate cherry granola bars caught my eye today. Do you have a granola bar recipe you love?

PS – we are still looking for an outdoor furniture set. For now this is the set-up. I still love it.

LUNCH

Fishy course numero uno coming up…

Mixed greens, tuna steak, olive gnocchi, sour kraut, fresh tomatoes and edamame spread, dressed with lemon juice

The tuna and gnocchi were leftovers from Saturday’s dinner in Maine. I still owe you a post about that. I promise to not to hold out much longer.

The edamame spread was a great little addition to the salad. I dipped everything in it. Yum!

Dessert: chocolate cookie with white chocolate chips

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK

And then the sushi craving hit again… hard. So I made it happen.

DINNER

Fishy course numero dos: wildfire maki from Samurai (from the specials menu) – spicy tuna maki topped with tuna, jalapenos and garlic, blow-torched and served with ponzu sauce

+ sushi appetizer (chef’s choice of 6 pieces of sushi)

Hello fishies

Honestly this was not the best sushi I’ve had. It didn’t seem that fresh. I want sushi to melt in my mouth – this wasn’t the case today. I’m going to think twice about going back to that place.

After everything was set and done, Adam finally came home and delivered a gift from my parents (my birthday is coming up in a few weeks) – a new lens!!! I immediately started playing with it. Yeah, I’ve got work to do, that’s for sure. The pics with the new super fast lens are so blurry!

Random pics of the night…

Mexican frittata I made for Adam… it was delicious if I do say so myself

New photographs we got at a gallery in Rockland, ME. You like?

Eventually there was a bit more snacking.

Multiply these nuts times 3. Yeah, I need to put them in little baggies asap, otherwise we may be in trouble here.

And that’s all I’ve got tonight. Peace out…. and honor your cravings!

This is our instructor:

The class began with every sushi student introducing him/herself and telling the class about his/her favorite sushi and their sushi making “experience.” One woman was “dragged” to the class and never even tasted sushi. I wonder what she thought about this experience. The rest of us definitely had a great time!

After everyone introduced themselves, our instructor briefed us on sushi making safety – fresh vs. frozen vs. cooked fish, clean utensils, clean vegetables. This part was a bit boring but I appreciated the content. Then we talked about making the proper sushi rice. The instructor highly recommended a rice steamer since it takes a lot of guess work out of the process (*we saw one at Target yesterday for $13. Sounds like a great deal to me). Rinse the rice, then follow steamer instructions. For every 4 cups of uncooked rice, use 1 cup of rice vinegar (very important, this is the only vinegar to be used for sushi) and 1/5 cup of sugar and 1/5 cup of salt. You can also purchase pre-made sushi vinegar that already contains the proper balance of vinegar/salt/sugar. Sushi rice is also available at most sushi restaurants for purchase. Note: for those that would like to use brown rice for sushi making, make sure you are using short grain Japanese rice. This rice is sticky and will not fall apart on you.

Once the lecture part was over, we got to see the chef in action! I was so excited!!!

1) Nori (seaweed) comes in large sheets – to make 1 roll, you need 1/2 of the sheet. Cut it in half and apply rice to the dull side (just looks prettier, the taste is not affected).

2) This is how much rice you’ll need for 1 roll = ~ 1 rice snow ball.

3) Apply the rice onto the nori – a thin layer is sufficient. You can take some off, make sure edges are covered so the roll ends are not empty.

4) For an inside out roll, flip the nori with the rice side down.

5) Apply your fillings. If you’re a maki making novice, use no more than 2 ingredients the first few times. All vegetables must be 100% dry (cucumber meat only, etc.)

* It’s helpful if you have something solid on the far side of the roll – this prevents fillings from sliding away from you (the crab stick is used here as the “barrier”). Fill up to the half way point, leave some nori uncovered.

6) Big thumbs under the bamboo matt, begin rolling.

Voila! (it’s hard to show the rolling process in pictures – a class or a video tutorial is recommended so you get the technique right).

7) Smile proudly at your perfectly rolled maki!

Cut

9) Plate (the instructor went over the process twice so here are the 2 rolls, cut differently).

Then it was time for us to make our rolls. Lots of fillings to choose from…

We had to put our rubber gloves on so I couldn’t take any pictures during our sushi making process. It was a blast. I made a california roll and a shrimp/ avocado/ cucumber/ pickled radish roll. Then we broke out into 2 separate groups (beginners and designer sushi makers) and our group (beginner) got to see how to make single ingredient rice side in maki and jumbo rolls. The designer sushi makers made dragon rolls, I think. For single ingredient rice side in maki, use half the rice and don’t flip it over. That’s it!

The jumbo maki was well, jumbo! Place the nori vertically in front of you and fill to the max (half way down, leave some uncovered nori). You can have some veggies stick out on one side for a “flower” presentation. Our instructor literally used every single ingredient from the bar to fill this baby. It was scary and exciting. Follow the same rolling instructions. Makes 1 gigantic roll.

Isn’t it gorgeous?!!!

I made another spicy tuna roll (single ingredient) and a jumbo roll with everything I could stuff in there (including sweet potato fries, awesome!!). It was really really fun and I can’t wait to make my own sushi at home. It’s cheaper and I can control what goes into it. Anyone up for a sushi making party?

For pictures of our final products, check out this post. And if you are in the Boston area, I would highly recommend attending the sushi school at Sea To You if you’re interesting in sushi making.

Proud sushi students (the most unflattering picture of me in the history of pictures but whatev)

Have you made maki before?

Other than that though, I’m starting to get the hang of it. That’s really great news since it’s only been about a week. Anyways, this post is not really about my progress on IE. There will be more posts on that, I promise. The reason I am mentioned it is because trying to eat intuitively is teaching me something other than not eating mindlessly. It is teaching me to be more kind to myself. That’s when yesterday’s run comes into play… shall we begin?

I had a goal – I wanted to run 12 miles and I wanted to run them by myself. It was supposed to be a gorgeous day out – this was the perfect day for me to run at a comfortable speed and really listen to my body. No distractions, no guilt about holding someone else back – just me and my ipod. The sun was shining, I was pumped. Around 10 am yesterday morning, I took off. I had a whole run mapped in my head and was looking forward to every milestone. After about 2 miles I was done I wanted to walk, just for a few minutes. I made a deal with myself that I could walk after 3 miles. Done – walked for 0.15 miles at mile 3. Loved every second of it. Then I slowly took off. It felt great to run. I didn’t understand why I needed to walk before. And then oh I don’t know, less than a mile in, I wanted to walk again. I walked again for about 0.15 miles. This little game continued for a few more miles. I was mentally exhausted.

Right at the half-way point, I was just DONE. I didn’t feel like running for 1 more second and I started questioning the reasons for running at all. The high of finishing a challenging long run cannot be beat. You know you accomplished something so amazing, all with your own 2 feet and mind (the latter possibly being the more important one). I wish I could bottle up this feeling, but yesterday I didn’t care about how amazing it would feel. I wanted to be kind to myself and just stop. I don’t mean just this one time, I mean just stop… for good.

Running has become a source of (mental) pain for me, only sometimes followed by joy. Of course it feels so good because it’s hard but maybe that’s not good enough. Maybe I can live a life where I follow my passions (fitness related included) and have that be enough, whatever “that” may be. I do enjoy running but I’m really done with training. I want to run because I feel like it, not because I have to. I think this whole time I was beating myself up for that horrible ending of last half. I forgave myself yesterday and I’m moving on.

What does that mean going forward? I will continue running with my friends and sometimes on my own (most likely just shorter runs). I will NOT worry about pace or distance. That’s not the point. I will explore other workouts. Yoga has become a recent passion I have not been able to dedicate sufficient time to. I was postponing so many things until “after that May half.” Once I made the decision to stop training, it was like this giant weight was lifted off my shoulders. What’s quite ironic, is that I actually sprinted. I took off because I wanted to and it felt amazing! I ended up covering about 10.5 miles yesterday. I probably ran 7 of them. I am happy with that because I am happy with my decision to let go. This is progress for me.

I haven’t posted about any of my food since Thursday. I put a self-imposed ban on eating out this weekend because we’ll be eating out A LOT next week. Everything was delicious and I would love to share it with you over the upcoming days. Although it’s a bit out of order, I guess I’ll share yesterday’s eats with you in this post. I ate intuitively. It actually is easier for me on the weekends.

PRE-RUN SNACK

1.5 toasts with homemade almond butter, 3/4 banana and coffee

SNACKS

I was running late for my hair appointment after the run/walk and a shower so I grabbed a juicy apple + a larabar to consume on the go.

LUNCH

After 2.5 hours at the salon, I was more than happy to eat for real. I was actually dreaming of a veggie/hummus bagel sandwich the entire time I was in that chair.

The Boston Garden from Finagle A Bagel (hummus, mixed field greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, olive tapenade & balsamic vinaigrette) on a ww bagel, scooped out

I enjoyed it on the bench in Copley Square while soaking up the sunshine and people watching. It was perfect.

DINNER

Sushi that we made!!!!

Adam and I took a maki making class yesterday and came home with so much good stuff. I’m just going to post these pics for now, but I will do a recap of the class in a separate post. Deal?

The sushi was awesome. We both felt so proud of our creations.

Quite the day. Lots of decisions. I feel like I have so much more to share but we’ll leave it at that for now (gotta leave a little material for future posts ). I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and I hope that you’re not disappointed in me. I’m happy with my decisions this weekend.

And on that note… peace

Friday nights are my absolute favorite. I had to work this weekend, but I still wanted to pretend I was going to have a full weekend of fun ahead of me. We also happened to have a gorgeous day here in Boston, which has not been the case for the most part of this “summer.” Every nice day we end up having just makes everything better! That, combined with my new decision to live a little more and stop calorie counting and sugar and flour restriction + the fact that it was a Friday night made for a wonderful night out!

Around 7 pm Adam picked me up from work and we decided to find a spot for dinner. Neither one of us had a craving for anything specific, until I mentioned sushi. The second that word came out of my mouth, there was no turning back. I haven’t had sushi in ages (white rice, sugar in the rice, soy sauce = non CLC compliant) and I needed it NOW Haru happened to be just around the corner of where we were, and it’s definitely one of our favorite sushi restaurants in Boston. Definitely a little pricey but the atmosphere (clean + modern) + quality of fish + creativity of dishes make it a worthy splurge once in a while. I was SO excited for my meal, I could hardly contain myself

I started with a glass of Smoking Lagoon Cabernet Savignon. It was the cheapest cab by the glass but I still enjoyed it. I’m pretty sure I paid more for that glass than the whole bottle was worth, but I also enjoyed it with amazing sushi and that’s something I can’t recreate at home!

While sipping on my vino, I browsed through the menu. Everything sounded good! It was hard to decide what to get, but the second Adam pointed out the Strawberry Fin special roll, I knew it was a winner! I always get one “special roll” and then get a few other basics. This time I ordered 2 salmon sushi + 1 shrimp sushi, and at the last moment decided to also get the tuna tataki with avocado. I haven’t had good tuna tataki in forever, and was really excited to try Haru’s version when I saw it on the menu. So here’s the loot…

The sushi was so fresh! I think you can tell how buttery the fish is from these pics…

And the Strawberry Fin (crunchy spicy yellowtail, jalapeno peppers and mango, topped with scallops, wasabi tobiko and fresh strawberries) was probably the coolest (and best) maki roll I’ve ever had. Well, I guess I also really love the hawaii maki at Fin’s. We’ll call it a draw. The flavors were so complex! I loved the spiciness of the jalapenos, mixed with the sweet mango and strawberries. I dipped every bite in the strawberry sauce it came with (no need for soy sauce here!). SO good!

Aren’t these guys so cute? The tuna tataki (seared tuna with avocado salad and spicy soy vinaigrette) was also excellent! I didn’t eat all the avocado, but the tuna was definitely gone by the end of the night

The meal was superb! I was so happy with my selections, and was very satisfied. So I said no to dessert. Wow, that’s a first! In my attempt to be more mindful of how I feel and not eating things on “auto-pilot” this was a great decision. Of course my sweet tooth kicked in later, but we’ll get there in a bit

We decided to have another drink at one of the bars in the area, and stumbled upon a newly renovated Champions in the Marriot Hotel at Copley. Champions is a sports bar and used to be a bit divey, but literally 3 days ago the place was reopened with a brand new super stylish decor. We were pretty impressed, especially since we’ll be living like 2 minutes away from it in less than 2 months! I would love to become a “regular” at this swanky bar My drink of choice was the Estancia Cabernet Savignon. The bartender gave me a really generous pour (this picture was taken after I drank probably half of it!). I liked this wine a lot!

We chatted while drinking for a while and then decided to head home to watch some Entourage dvds. But not before stopping by the Fenway Berryline. Tart frozen yogurt, you are the best guilt free dessert ever!

They had 3 flavors: original, banana and blueberry. All were amazing so I got a small of all 3 + mochi (regular and strawberry) + fresh mango.

This picture isn’t great – I waited to come home to snap this photo so the yogurt melted a bit, but it tasted so good. The mochi was a bit of an indulgence. They were soft and yummy but of course are still candy. I’ll stick to fruit and nuts next time for a beter-for-me dessert. If you haven’t tried tart yogurt yet, you must go out and get some asap (Inna, I’m talking to you! ).

And this ends my Friday night recap. What’s your favorite night of the week? Do you have a Friday night routine? Do you prefer to stay at home and relax after a long work week or go out and party your heart out?

So Friday night was really fun (I’ve decided that I want to go out more often on Fridays – just makes the night extra celebratory), but let’s start from the beginning…

I woke up dreaming about this yogurt combo inspired by Lauren’s breakfast earlier in the week. We were still out of fresh fruit, so frozen (warmed up) berries sounded amazing. I didn’t know how dependent I’ve become on fresh produce and I really miss it when we’re out (or even running low). I guess that’s not a bad thing

So back to breakfast… in this bowl: 1 plain chobani, about 1 cup of frozen (microwaved for 1 minute) berries, 2 graham crackers and vanilla cinnamon amazing almonds (from the package I got from Meghann).

I was afraid the berries would be sour so that’s why I went with the candied almonds addition. I was happy to find out that the berries instead were incredibly sweet – the whole bowl (seriously!) tasted like amazing dessert. Creamy yogurt, sweet berries, buttery graham crackers and crunchy almonds. I will definitely try to recreate this when my sweet tooth kicks in at night. This is much healthier but incredibly satisfying. What more could a girl want? Oh wait, maybe she would want some chocolate pecan banana bread? Oh yeah, that’s it (Recipe + progress pics for the banana bread to come)

[yogurt + banana bread + coffee = 482 calories]

Mid afternoon, I had this fabulous snack:

[181 calories]

I pre-stuffed both the dates and the crackers, but the crackers got slightly soft on me before I ate them. The whole combo was really great, but I’d recommend consuming the cheese stuffed cracker “sandwiches” right away.

Lunch was a 2-parter. I started with a whole bunch of random leftovers – somehow they worked really well. I made a salad with spinach, grape tomatoes, snow peas with 1T Annie’s woodstock dressing (I always drizzle the dressing on after taking a picture). On the other side we have bulgar with creamy mushrooms (just tiny bit of shrooms left from a few nights ago). Woodstock dressing has sun dried tomatoes and tahini as a base. The sabra sundried tomato hummus (which has both ingredients as well) went really great with it and tied the 2 sides of the plate perfectly. I kind of mixed it into both the bulgar and the salad. Yum!

[285 calories]

Then I went to a grocery store to pick up a few fruits. It’s finally May, which means a new budget. Yay! It started raining right before I was about to leave my work to get the fruit, but I didn’t care. I swear just the idea of a fresh juicy apple made my mouth water. A little rain never hurt anyone

It was so sweet – like someone injected it with sugar. Could/would they do that? Hmm.

[apple+almonds=185 calories]

The lack of real protein at lunch really caught up with me mid-afternoon. I was really snacky. I started with 1/2 of this bar:

[1/2 bar = 100 calories]

It was delicious (I’ll be more descriptive when I eat the other half), but I realized that what I really wanted was this piece of heaven…

[170 calories]

Mmm, yeah – best ice cream ever! These things are a little small, but really that’s the perfect amount to satisfy an ice cream craving. For 170 calories, you get creamy coconut ice “cream” topped with real chocolate and almonds bits. Did I mention how much I love these?

And then a few hours later it was time to let the weekend begin (by the way, this is also where the calorie counting stopped)! We met up with our friends for a beer first at the new Irish pub, the Lansdowne. The bar is only 1 week old and had almost like a new car smell. Kind of funny. I ordered my usual – Magners hard cider. Hey at least this time I was drinking an Irish cider in an Irish pub I drank almost this whole pint – gave the rest of the 21oz bottle to Adam and also some of the cider I didn’t finish. We had more drinking to do at dinner

I also had a few of the cheese fries the guys ordered for the table. Not healthy but so delicious. I had maybe 7 of them?

And then we went to Fin’s for dinner. I got a really strong sushi craving mid-day and I knew I absolutely HAD TO have some tonight. Fin’s is walking distance from our place and it is fabulous, so it was an easy craving to fix. I started with a house salad (no onions) – lettuce, tomato, cucumber, carrots (really just for garnish) and house-made dressing. The salad was like the standard little salads you get in your bento box, but was probably 4 times the size. I ate nearly every bite. Yum!

Oh of course I had some vino Maybe 1.5-2 glasses. I was trying to be good in preparation for the race on Sunday.

And the main course – sushi. It was better than I remembered. Absolutely amazing!!! The presentation was so cute too – I got the flower because I ordered the hawaii maki. Adorable!

The salmon was melt-in-your mouth fresh. I had to give a bite to Adam, it was so delicious!

Hawaii maki: spicy tuna, avocado, mango wrapped in rice paper

What a great combo! Spicy tuna + sweet mango + creamy avocado. The rice paper was also a really fun change from the seeweed wrappers. Much less chewy – just added to the creamy feel of the whole thing. Perfecto!

Ha, I just realized that last time I went to Fin’s I ordered almost the exact same thing. That stuff must have looked good to me twice Btw, Adam ordered the cowboy maki (which had steak, asparagus, shiitake mushrooms and red onion). I didn’t taste it because of the onions, but he could not stop talking about how amazing this was. He said this maki was cravable. That’s a good sign that we’ll probably be back at Fin’s soon.

And finally – when we got home I wanted dessert. Banana slice #2 of the day… with some peanut butter slathered on top this time. I blame the wine.

We then cuddled on the coach and watched the Biggie movie. It was really good. We love Biggie! What a perfect night.

How is your weekend going?

I’m happy to report that I finally got some sleep last night – almost 10 hours, actually.  It felt SO good to wake up this morning, actually well rested.  Yay!  Another reason to be super happy today: we had 60* weather in Boston!!  I know many of you understand how awesome that is.  My husband and I definitely took advantage of it and walked for over 5 miles.  It was beautiful.   Too bad it’s going to get colder before it gets warmer for real.   Ok ok, enough talk, let’s get to food!

BEST MEAL OF THE DAY

I had some super delicious foods today so picking my favorite meal today was a tough call.  This one wins just because of it’s complexity.  It took nearly 3 hours to make!  I spotted this recipe for the root veggie pie with rosemary biscuit topping on Andrea’s blog a little while ago and couldn’t wait to make it (although honestly she’d make cat food look amazing with those photography skills)!  The long prep/cooking time she warned us all about definitely meant it had to be a weekend night meal, and a weekend night meal when I had a lot of patience at that.  Given that I hardly cooked in the last 2 weeks, I figured I was up for the challenge today.  This meal did take a lot of patience but we were reworded with a delicious meal at the end, so it was all good   Here are some progress photos for you (scroll over for descriptions)…

* Making the biscuit dough didn’t take very long so I put the bowl into the fridge until the veggies were ready to be topped off*

This was very intense!  Quite delicious but very intense.  I actually had to force it down a little bit, and I didn’t think it was very much food (volume wise).  It could have something to do with the fact that it was nearly 10 pm by the time we were eating it and I just worked out.  Maybe…   I’ll let you know if I want to eat all of the leftovers tomorrow.  Ha!  That may be the real test.  Oh, I should mention the hubs went back for seconds on this.  Always a good sign!

OTHER DELICIOUS EATS

Total calories for the day: ~1510

WORKOUT

Well, as mentioned above I went on a 5+ mile walk with my husband to take advantage of the beautiful weather we had in Boston today.  Everything took a lot longer today so I had to work out while the veggies were in the oven.  Good thing I had Jillian to guide me through a quick (but sweaty) workout.  Today was my first day of trying Jillian’s 30-day Shred dvd.  I used 4 lb weights for everything except for 6 lb weights for the flys set.  I thought I could do a lot more on the bit with the bicep curls (forget if it was the second or the 3rd set).  I need to invest in some heavier weights for that.  The one move that nearly killed me with the 4lb weights was the side lunge + raise.  Ouch!  I considered switching to 2 pounders but stuck it out.  I think it’s better to challenge myself and hopefully by the 10th day, I’ll do this move with no problems   Workout stats…

• Duration: 0:26
• Calories burnt: 186 (45% fat)
• Ave HR: 133; Max HR: 206

Don’t forget to switch your clocks 1 hour forward (if you are in the US). I’m going to miss this hour tonight

After chatting for a bit, we finally ordered some food.  I feel like I haven’t had a salad in forever so I started with a Field Green salad (no onions or scallions)… I think it was just mixed greens, tomatoes, red and green peppers and carrots.  It was much bigger than I was expected and I ate almost every bite.  The dressing on it was perfectly light and the veggies were nice and fresh.  I love salads!

Then came the sushi.  I wanted to try something fun + a few basics, so I went with the Hawaii Maki (spicy tuna, avocado, mango wrapped in rice paper) + 2 salmon nigiri and 2 unagi nigiri.  Here is my plate:

It was SO good!  I’ve never seen maki wrapped in rice paper instead of seaweed.  Pretty cool!  The spicy tuna was spicier than I expected (but I love spicy!) so I was chugging water like it was going out of style   The nigiri was especially fresh (like melt-in-your-mouth fresh!).  Seriously I could eat sushi everyday!  Perfect food day for Elina: yogurt parfait for breakfast, salad from b.good for lunch and sushi for dinner.  Oh yeah, don’t forget lots of chocolate and baked goods in between!

I also tried one of Katie’s spicy scallop rolls.  She said they are her favorite but these weren’t the best.  They were a little overcooked, I think… slightly tougher than you’d want them.  Still yummy though

I was absolutely stuffed by the time we were done with dinner!  We chatted for almost 2.5 hours!!  So much fun!

OTHER EATS OF THE DAY:

Multiply this half by 3!  I just couldn’t get enough.  It was warm, fresh and delicious (and free).  Damn free food.

I’m actually posting this from work, so I better go do what I’m actually getting paid for!