I did “force” myself to take pictures of my breakfast and dinner today. Lunch was yesterday’s dinner leftovers.

BREAKFAST

2 multi-grain waffles with Maranatha almond butter, fresh local organic strawberries (amazing!!) and strawberry rhubarb jam. Good stuff.

After writing my previous post, I actually did end up making a virgin bloody mary to-go. It was gone too soon. I was dreaming of having another one all day. And I did when I got home. Yes, I’m addicted.

Snacks throughout the day included an orange, a banana bread clif bar, some cookies, cheese, bread with baba ganoush and I feel like there was something else but I really can’t remember.

DINNER

Grilled lemon-soy mahi-mahi with noodles and snap pea-radish salad (based on this recipe from Cooking Light)

This dinner had so many components, I was pretty proud of pulling it together in roughly 40 minutes. It was pretty yummy but nothing extraordinary. I actually think the leftovers will taste better (I doubled the recipe) since the sauce will have time to absorb into the fish, noodles and veggies. The noodles were definitely my favorite part. The mahi-mahi is also a great meaty fish.

Local snow peas and radish

Mmm, noodles. I felt pretty fancy making the carrot ribbons.

No workout today but I do have a pilates session scheduled tomorrow morning (eek, I am NOT a morning person) that I have to attend, otherwise they’ll charge me for it. Hopefully starting the day with exercise will put me in the right healthy mindset. Plus it’s farmers market day. That always makes my day.

See you later, alligators. I’m hoping my next post will be a lot more upbeat.

This is when my new rule (and the fact that my husband was in fact at the gym that very moment) came in handy. I planned on going for a run (if thousands can run 26.2 miles on this day, surely I could do a few miles, no?) but I told myself that just going out there and walking for 20 minutes will be enough, if that’s all I feel like (redefining success). I changed into my running gear, grabbed my ipod loaded with Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and took off.

About a minute later my garmin died. Normally this would freak me out and I’d treat it as a sign that a run was not in the cards, but all of a sudden the sun came out and it was gorgeous out. I checked the clock on my ipod and just started running. It was an easy jog, I ran while listening to my book and I swear I could keep running forever. It was amazing!! I think I can partly contribute this to the book “on-tape” because my mind was occupied the entire time (and it wasn’t occupied with ways to convince myself to stop). I finally stopped because I got really close to home and wanted to do a short cooldown walk – 46 minutes my ipod said. I’m guessing I just banged out 5 miles. Sweet! I felt like a million bucks. From now on – 20 minutes, that’s all I’m committing too. I’m sure some days that’s all it will be, but on others I may just surprise myself with a 5-miler. Now I can’t wait to go for another run!!!

BREAKFAST

TJ’s European style nonfat yogurt, 1/2 mango, All-bran flakes, apple butter + coffee

The mangos were not sweet enough and the whole mixture was pretty sour so I added a serving of TJ’s nutty american trek mix. The chocolate chunks transformed this breakfast into a new level of deliciousness.

MID-MORNING SNACK

LUNCH

This lunch was such a treat because both Adam and I got to eat a freshly cooked meal at home during lunch. It didn’t take long at all! I followed Cara’s recipe for sizzling haloumi with roasted asparagus and tomatoes but Whole Foods was out of the haloumi (which was supposed to be on sale) so I subbed some fresh tilapia for it instead.

I stir fried the fish in a sprayed skillet + 1T of EVOO, cooking it for maybe 3 minutes (if that) on each side. Wow, this was beyond fantastic!!! It was bursting with flavor. The delicate fish drizzled with the EVOO/lemon/caper sauce was so beautiful paired with the young roasted asparagus and the roasted tomatoes that popped in your mouth.

Both Adam and I were floored at how delicious and fresh tasting this was. Very spring-y. It’s going on our favorites list!!

MID-AFTERNOON SNACKS

A little brownie with walnuts from our secretary (my treat for the day)

Chocolate peanut butter granola for a pre-run snack

DINNER

During my lunch break, I also plopped all the taco soup ingredients into our crock pot. I love that the chicken breasts go in whole so there is no prep work. This literally took less than 5 minutes to “make” and dinner was waiting for me after my run. Adam already sampled it and “warned” me that it was amazing. 2 for 2 today?

I topped my taco soup with a bit of lite mexican cheese and a dollop of nofat yogurt + 1/2 tortilla wrap toasted and cut into pieces. After mixing the yogurt and cheese in, the soup got super creamy and man was it flavorful! A nutritious and delicious dinner in less than 5 minutes of prep? Sign me up. We’ll be making this again

I got used to having dessert after dinner but I’m trying to stick to one treat a day and see how that goes. Since I already had a brownie mid-afternoon, I chugged a bunch of water after dinner and it totally did the trick. Some tv, cuddled up with the hubs on the couch, also took my mind off snacking.

Are you a morning, afternoon, or a night exerciser? Is it hard for you to get out there if you’re thrown off your regular schedule? What are you tricks?

“BREAKFAST”

I wasn’t hungry and this orange was the only thing I really wanted. It tasted like a juicy heaven.

LUNCH

A little while later I thought it was time to have some real food, so I reheated some leftover Cuban braised beef with peppers, avocado and cilantro over ww couscous

Adam really hates cilantro but I purchased it for myself since this dish and another one I plan on making later this week called for it. I realized how in love I am with cilantro. It really made this meal extra special. Yum!

All messy…

MID-AFTERNOON SNACKS

Another juicy orange…

A caramel oikos

And 3 cookie dough servings…

After polishing off these babies, I looked up Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution online and decided to watch the first 2 episodes of his show. Within the first 5 minutes, it made me sick thinking about the fact that just I fed myself cookies that I didn’t even bother baking. Sure they don’t have junk ingredients but that’s not exactly nourishing food either. Ten minutes into the show, I realized that I’m a far cry from the people in Huntington. I wonder how a culture where majority of the population consumes over-processed unidentifiable food forms. Sure pizza, burgers and fries taste good but I truly had no idea that some families’/entire cities’ worth of people’s diets mainly consisted of these three “food groups.” It made me sick seeing children being fed pizza for breakfast and chicken nuggets with mashed potatoes (out of potato pearls – WTF is that?!!) for lunch, but the most shocking scene was when Jamie Oliver asked the kids to identify some fresh veggies he brought in. The kids didn’t know what a tomato looked like. Seriously – a tomato??!!! This is not exactly advanced stuff here. Out of 20+ kids, not even one could properly name a fruit or a vegetable. I think someone guessed an eggplant was a pear. They were basically just naming random fruit and veggies they’ve heard of but clearly have never seen in their natural form. This makes me sad, very very sad.

I did not grow up in this country. I can’t remember what our cafeteria served at school (Innz, mom, dad – any clues?). I know it wasn’t anything to write home about either, although I’m pretty sure it was still all made from scratch. To be honest, I think it wasn’t because our food culture was superior – this was just what was available to us and I wonder if chicken nuggets, burgers and pizza are now part of the cafeteria repertoire at my old school.  All of our food at home was also made from scratch, and it was good food despite the fact that food was limited in quantity and things like sugar and flour were bought with food stamps and meat was purchased when my parents were lucky enough to “catch it” at the store (likely after standing in line for hours). Every weekend we went to the market to get fresh produce. Sometimes we’d be treated to a snickers bar or something like that. One weekend I recall we got lucky with a whole bunch of strawberries. I think I ate a whole bucket full of them and broke out in hives. It was just such a treat that I went overboard and my body freaked out. My memory is definitely spotty about all of this.

I shouldn’t really compare myself to the kids in the show but at the same time I can’t really help it. I am not judging, it’s just interesting. How did all this technology and food availability contribute to complete lack of food education? Could you identify a tomato at the age of 6? What about broccoli or cauliflower? Too advanced? I really wonder what schools around Boston serve. I believe that Huntington is not a true representation of every school in America. At least I hope so…

DINNER

It’s CEiMB Thursday and tonight’s dish was hosted by Veggies and Valentino. She picked Ellie Krieger’s miso glazed cod which has been on my to-make list for ages. I even bought the miso paste about 6 months ago to finally make it but never did.

The cod was phenomenal! It was so flavorful and tender – I swear this week’s dinners have been the best I’ve made in ages. Every night I am just astonished at how easily I am able to feed my family (of two) such quality food. Adam said this was restaurant quality! We love, love, loved it!

Can you identify this vegetable?

I steamed this asparagus and then stir-fried them in some EVOO, soy sauce, balsamic and S&P inspired by this recipe from Good Things Catered. Simple ingredients, tons of flavor! That’s a meal I am proud to eat and serve to my loved ones.

Have you had a chance to catch Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution yet? Do you remember what your school served? What role did food play in your childhood and what kind of food was it?

We’re going to have 70* weather all weekend. I hope I am able to recover asap so that I can enjoy some of this beautiful weather.

Our house smells like Christmas!!

Fresh flowers in the vase…

And the dining room table set…

Everybody – have some wine! [This was a fantastic Chianti my dad brought.]

FIRST COURSE

We started with a nice salad: mixed greens, arugula, roasted apples, pomegranate seeds and hazelnuts

I thought all the salad ingredients complemented each other really well – the sweet and savory balance was spot on (she pats herself on the back…).

I followed this recipe for the dressing (cut the oil by 1/2).

I also decided to make little appetizers with the Pepperidge Farm puff pastry (I received a free coupon for it from Foodbuzz).

These guys were inspired by a pasta I used to love at an old local restaurant in New York.  They’re topped with vodka sauce, roasted asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts and a graded parmesan. Delicious!!

My plate:

SECOND COURSE

The star of the show: sweet-spicy glazed salmon. This is one of my favorite salmon recipes – I follow this recipe from Cooking Light, substituting 1/2 honey mustard and 1/2 country dijon mustard for Chinese-style hot mustard.

Haricot verts, steamed then sauteed in a tiny bit of EVOO with garlic.

Couscous pilaf (recipe based on p. 12 of The Best of Cooking Light, Great Plates) – ww couscous, dried cherries, almond slivers, lemon zest and S&P.

My plate (I ate 1/2 of it… getting stuffed!)

The salmon was a hit! This glaze is fabulous!!

The cherries in the couscous were my favorite. I <3 cherries

Let’s not forget the veggies. Simple preparation doesn’t mean simple taste.

DESSERT

The almond, cherry chocolate clusters made their appearance on the dinner table. This recipe is already becoming a staple in my entertaining repertoire because it takes just minutes to make and everybody loves these clusters!

All 12 were gobbled up!

My aunt also brought a dessert – a local specialty called “chuck chuck.” Her mother-in-law made this particular batch with nearly every ingredient home-grown. This is little homemade pastry noodles, fried then covered in a honey glaze. The eggs are from the chickens they have and the honey is from their own honey-combs. Pretty awesome. We picked on this sticky mess all night. Mmm…..

Teas galore

My first portion (I had a whole lot more of the chuck chuck)

Family pic for evidence Happy bellies…

I’m really in the holiday spirit now!! Thank you, parents, for my early Chanukkah cash. I’m off to shop! Oh, I have to go to work first? Ok, ok…

See you guys later!

BREAKFAST

It was Thursday, which meant a CEiMB meal. I always have mixed feelings about breakfast choices because it’s hard to make them on a weekday. This recipe for peach french toast bake chosen by the lovely Liz of The Not So Skinny Kitchen, called for most of the prep the night before and required just baking in the morning. I could handle that!

As you can see in the above picture, I used blueberries instead of peaches because that’s the only organic frozen fruit TJ’s carries (that’s where I went for my groceries this week). Peaches are very dirty fruit (pesticide wise) so I definitely was not going to buy the conventional kind to follow the recipe to the T. Blueberries are delicious in their own way, anyways.

I’ve actually made this baked french toast before and if you read here, you’ll see I liked it (last time I also used berries instead of peaches). This time I added more cinnamon to the batter and baked only 2 servings (allowing for extra room in the pan); the baguette pieces browned up nicely, but I thought the batter was a bit bland. It was delicious, but not OMG-I-can’t-wait-to make-i-again-but-for-now-I’ll-eat-both-servings-delicious. Could be a good thing I’d add some sugar to the egg mixture, because it was almost savory, despite the fresh fruit and brown sugar on top.  A dollop of oikos was perfect on top!

LUNCH

Leftover chicken-butternut tagine

Now that I knew what to expect and didn’t have crazy high expectations, I enjoyed it

SNACKS

This is where the proud moment comes in. I was in the Flour Bakery neighborhood and the day before decided that I was going to get their “granola bar.” Don’t be fooled by this name, this is a pastry, an incredibly delicious pastry!

This thing was giant! As soon as I got it, I knew I should only eat half. It took a lot of will power, but I split it in half, and put the rest in a little ziplock baggie. I’ll definitely enjoy it another day

Mid-afternoon I got a bit hungry and wanted to reach for the other half of the granola bar, but instead had a perfectly crunchy and juicy apple. A pastry is not a good way to satisfy hunger; an apple is!

I’m SO proud of this rational thinking and very mindful eating. Don’t you guys think I deserve a medal for this one?

DINNER

I went to the gym after work (took a Group Power/boot camp hybrid class) so dinner had to be very quick if I was going to continue with healthy choices (Adam and I were both staaarving). It came together in seriously 5 minutes flat with the help of some leftovers I bought some wild cod at TJ’s on Wednesday, which I defrosted overnight. When dinner time came, I rubbed the fish with Zesty’s Texas chicken rub, and broiled it for a few minutes (the slices were very thin so that’s all it took). While the fish was broiling, I microwaved some leftover mushroom mashed potatoes and popped some fresh snap peas in the micro for 2 minutes with some S&P and red pepper flakes. Easy, healthy and delicious!

Yum!

After dinner, I finished the container with apple and carrot shortbread cookies (only a few little ones left) – unpictured. It was a great eating day and my attitude was the best part of it all. Eating mindfully and treating my body right feels gooood!! Happy Friday!

TODAY’S EATS:

Breakfast: banana oats topped with banana, raisins and walnuts + coffee

It’s been too long since I’ve had oats (and bananas for that matter). This breakfast really hit the spot!

Mid-morning snacks: 1/2 apple-walnut raisin bar from co-worker’s fiance (whom I had dinner with that night so I wanted to taste her cake to give feedback – that’s my excuse ) + tea

This cake tasted so moist and buttery. I was shocked to find out that she used this recipe was from Cooking Light and that there was absolutely no oil or butter. Seriously shocking!

+ I made a dent in my bar collection and tried the Heart Thrive apricot bar:

Wow, this bar was absolutely fabulous. First of all, who doesn’t love a heart shaped bar?! I was half-way sold just by the shape! Secondly, I really love dried apricots so again, I had high hopes for this guy – and it delivered! It was almost like a dense cookie. Very “meaty” – doughy, oaty (I know that’s not a real word ) with subtle dried fruit flavors. I have another one in the stash, and am already looking forward to it. It would be great just as an afternoon snack with a cup of tea. I really think they can market these as heart healthy cookies!

Lunch: leftover corn tortilla casserole (not as good the next day )

Mid-afternoon snack: local peach

Dinner was a bit of a special treat. I went out with my friend Katie (she’s also my co-worker’s fiance and baker of the above pictured apple cake ), whom I haven’t seen in months. We always end up at a great little restaurant and end up chatting the night away. This time we decided to go to Stephi’s on Tremont, a sister restaurant to a more upscale Stephanie’s on Newbury street. I started with a glass of The Drunken Goose sangiovese blend, which later turned into 2 glasses

… and had a little slice of this incredible garlic bread. Wow, this was bread perfection! Katie and I each took a little slice and moved this loaf to the other side of the table as to not tempt ourselves with it. Good stuff!

For my entree I ordered the Asian yellowfin tuna salad - seared sashimi grade tuna with chilled udon noodles, charred hot cherry peppers, shredded carrots, cabbage and cucumbers, bean sprouts, spicy peanuts, toasted coconut and sweet chili dressing.

This was another winner! The tuna really was of highest grade, and melted in my mouth. I got the dressings on the side, and actually ended up using the balsamic vinaigrette I asked for, which I think was a good move. I tasted the other dressings and they were all intensely sweet. I wanted to taste my food, not just sugar! I also loved the crunch of the peanuts and the freshness of the entire dish. Yum

Stephi’s has a huge salad selection, so I think it’s a great place to have lunch or dinner with a friend without overdoing it, calorie wise. They also have some incredible sounding comfort food, for a more indulgent night with the hubs. The place has been on my must-go-to list since it opened, and I’m glad I finally tried it. We’ll be back there soon, for sure!

Great great day. How was yours? Now tell me – do you have a workout schedule you try to stick to? How flexible are you with it? Do you ever get nervous about your workouts (or training runs) like I do? Any tips and tricks to keep going, instead of psyching yourself out? I want to hear from you!!

Have a fabulous day!

I personally love interval training! I love it not only for its benefits, but because it breaks down my workout into short little intervals. Instead of thinking about running for 30 minutes, for example, I think about running for the next 1/4 mile (~2 minutes). Of course I have to do it all over again once that interval is over, but I take it one interval at a time I actually look forward to these workouts because they always seem to fly by. On that note, I was just NOT feeling it yesterday. I got on the treadmill (by the way, I prefer the treadmill for interval runs because it’s a little more precise/ takes other variables out of the equation – although doing intervals outside is definitely a great workout too. Probably even harder.) and the second I started moving I was just “over it.” It wasn’t physical at all; I was running at the same speed as my previous runs and felt fine. I just felt mentally exhausted and wanted to get off asap. I knew I needed to fix my attitude, otherwise I’d be in for a torturous workout, so I got off the treadmill for a few minutes! I did a few laps around the perimeter of the gym and thought about how I was just planning on doing a post about how all you have to do to complete an interval run is take it a minute or 2 at a time. That’s it! It was quite ironic that this is the exact workout that seemed to defeat me and not the 8 mile run I completed on Sunday. I was going to tell you that you can do anything for 2 minutes, and then I realized… I can do anything for 2 minutes! So I got back on that treadmill and did just that! I had only 5 intervals left at this point (out of 7 I planned on). They were still not the super energetic ones I’ve had in the past, but I still completed my workout and felt great about it!

How I do my interval runs:

• Warm Up: I start them like any other workout with a brisk walk to warm up my muscles. The walk after 0.20 miles (for some reason this seems to be the magic distance) becomes an easy jog for about 0.30 miles. Then I’m ready to start!
• Intervals: Choose the number of intervals you will do that day and their distance. Yesterday I had 7×400 on my schedule (that’s 7 intervals ~ 1/4 mile long). You can start with a smaller number of intervals and increase them by 1 once or every other week. You can also do shorter or longer intervals (I’ve done 200 meters and 800 meters before; 400 is my favorite!). Set a pace that’s faster than you’re used to but that you’ll be able to do all those intervals at without dying I used to do really fast ones when I was just running a few times a week and had plenty recovery time, but now I set it a little lower because I don’t want to completely kill my legs and risk injury during a run the very next day. So anyway, you do let’s say a 1/4 mile interval, then recover for as long as you need to (I usually recover between 0.15 and 0.25 miles). Recovery can be a brisk walk or a slower jog (for example my intervals yesterday were at 8.0 mph and recovery runs at 7.0). You may be breathing a little hard during your intervals, and the recovery period should get your breathing down to normal. Recovery intervals may also get longer as you get more tired. It’s okay! The point is to finish the number of (fast) intervals you planned on. It does get easier and when you get comfortable with the speed of those fast intervals, your recovery time will diminish. That’s when you know you need to increase the speed of your intervals (we’re all about challenging ourselves here, right?)!
• Cooldown – I like to jog for a little bit longer after my planned interval session, and finish with a brisk walk again.
• Stretch!

Hope this was helpful to some of you Onto food…

I had hummus for breakfast! This is a FFL english muffin with peanut butter hummus on the left half and maple walnut hummus on the right half (added a few walnut crumbles to that one for extra fat for satiety) + 1/2 banana and red grapes. Yum!

Mid-morning snack: 1T almond butter + rainbow carrots (delicious, but NOT good running fuel, btw – partly responsible for my terrible run, it was just sitting like a rock in my stomach)

Lunch: leftover mac and cheese + V8 vegetable juice + an organic apple

Post work/pre-dinner snack: chocolate mousse hummus straight out of the container (I’m obsessed with this stuff!!!!!!!!! It tastes like black bean brownies)

+ unpictured red grapes + a fudgy mocha brownie (dinner was only going to take 30 minutes but I was still starving and impatient, so I figured I’d have dessert first )

Btw, I brought a bunch of these brownies to work and everyone LOVED them! Boys that usually want the full fat stuff were going back for seconds. I think this is the first time I’ve got rave reviews from them. Usually they say my stuff “tastes healthy.”

So you’d think I spoiled my appetite for dinner with all of those snacks… nope! For dinner I followed this recipe from Cooking Light for seared mahimahi with edamame succotash. It used up 3 things our of our freezer (corn, edamame and yellowfin tuna) so I was happy about that, but also this dish was so flavorful! I absolutely loved the little marinade for the succotash and I learned a new trick on how to make roasted peppers. Sweet! The fish came out perfectly cooked as well. Overall – great success (say it with me in your best Borat accent )

Mmm, perfectly marinaded veggies…

And that’s Wednesday for ya! I’m super excited about meeting some bloggers at JP Licks today, then I’m off to a pre-wedding celebration for a co-worker of mine. My co-workers don’t know about the blog, so I probably won’t take any pictures. We’ll see… I may just tell them.

How do you feel about interval training?

I ate really well today. By “well” I mean healthy AND delicious foods. I also made some choices I’m proud of. If you’ve been paying close attention, the last few days had more than 1 treat. I honestly was not beating myself up over it (hello, progress!) but I also would like to treat my body with respect and I think that 1 sugary/fatty treat a day is plenty.  So today I made a conscious choice to eat a lot cleaner. It was not about deprivation but rather moderation. I already bought a treat to enjoy tomorrow so I know it’s only a day away. I made a comment to my husband the other day that sometimes we need to stop eating like kids, who don’t think of consequences their food choices may have on their future bodies or health, and act like adults. Eating like an adult today to me meant that the chocolate chip cookie that I purchased at the farmers market will wait until tomorrow. I plan on fully enjoying it then with a nice cup of tea

The day’s eats:

Breakfast – 1 egg + 1 egg white + 1 sl. of American cheese + 1.5 sl. bacon on a Food for Life english muffin

Pre-workout snack: local peach

Lunch: baby spinach, grape tomatoes, cucumber, 1/4 avocado, 1/3 giant sweet potato + 1T Annie’s organic goddess dressing

+ TJ’s 100 calorie dark chocolate bar (it was for the anti-oxidants )

Mid-afternoon snack: TJ’s ww low carb tortilla + 1 Barney Butter packet + 1/2 banana

Dinner was spectacular! I was craving salmon and we haven’t had it in a while, so I decided to go to my go-to salmon recipe I raved about previously here (check out #8 of top 8 meals in 2008). In case you didn’t link there, this is the sweet-spicy glazed salmon from Cooking Light (recipe is available online here). I kind of think my salmon pic looks better

The green beans look unassuming in the back of that picture but they were beyond amazing too! I followed a recipe for skillet green beans with garlic and lemon from my current cookbook obsession The beans were a little spicy, saucy and so flavorful. I could eat a whole pound of them in one sitting – easy!

And now we get to dessert. I haven’t caught the “raw food bug” but I was intrigued to taste the famous raw banana soft serve that’s been all over the blogosphere lately. I had 2 frozen bananas sitting in the freezer waiting to be used up for a green monster or banana bread, and this was the perfect opportunity to give them a new life After about 3 minutes in the food processor, the bananas became beautifully creamy and produced a delicious soft serve!

Wow, that’s just bananas? That’s it? Yep! Amazing!!! Adam and I shared this portion. I couldn’t help but add a few walnut crumbles to “spice it up.” What a perfect way to finish a great meal… the healthy way!

As you can see above, eating like an adult did not mean that there were no treats. The treats were just much healthier, so really it’s about balance.  That chocolate cookie definitely has my name on it tomorrow, though

Hope you finish the work week strong and have some fun plans for the weekend!

I have lots of catching up to do on this past weekend. We had such a great time celebrating our first wedding anniversary and my dad’s birthday. But I kind of miss straight up food blogging, so today I’ll post about my food from yesterday. It was all clean good food + some cake at the end of the day to help me sleep better

BREAKFAST

Lots of goodies in here – TJ’s european style nonfat yogurt, mango, sweet cherries, pb puffins, almonds + cacao nibs. The cacao nibs are a new purchase (they are 100% cacao – no sugar added). I’m still learning to love them, but they’re not bad. Just not chocolate the way I’m used to it (obviously since there is no butter and sugar like in reg chocolate). The breakfast was super delicious – so many flavors, so many textures. Yum!

PRE-WORKOUT SNACK

Can’t get enough of these AK MAKS. They’ve basically become an everyday part of my pre-workout snack. Not heavy on the stomach but nice and hearty. Love them! The cherries were super sweet too. Too bad they’re not local… our local cherries are kind of sour

LUNCH

Simple – leftover chicken from Monday’s dinner at the Hamersley’s Bistro (separate post to come) + roasted turnips (tiny bit of EVOO + S&P, roasted at 400* for 50 minutes). The chicken the next day was just ok. A little greasy for my taste, even though I removed the skin. The turnips were yummy

And for dessert I munched on the mango core. Can’t let it go to waste

SNACKS

So many snacks in the afternoon! I really tried to listen to my body and not overeat, but I was hungry all afternoon. What’s up with that? Have you tried this kind of Larabar? I think it’s new. I liked it

Lots of walnut and sour cherry pieces. Love them both!

I still wanted more even after all those snacks, but I held off. I knew dinner would involve cake (my friend Katy was specifically coming over to have some, so I knew I’d have some too!).

DINNER

I got home almost at 8pm and was starving. I had this awesome dinner planned starring the bok choy I picked up at the farmers market last week, but it went bad It made me quite sad and threw me off a little. No worries, plan B turned out great, despite the ugly pictures. I pan fried some tilapia (1.5 tsp EVOO for 3 pieces + S&P and garlic), made some cauliflower following this simple cauliflower recipe from 101 cookbooks, and boiled some brown rice on the side. This was simple but quite perfect actually.

The cauliflower recipe is excellent. The melty parmesan cheese made this dish extra special

And of course there was cake! You can go ahead and double this picture. Yes, I had seconds.

Can you believe it’s Wednesday already? Times flies by when you’re having fun, huh? See you later!

- I NEED exercise in my life! I knew this already but this week, as I was trying to evaluate my actions a little closer (and figure out my trigger points), made me truly realize what a difference exercise makes in my mood and general happiness. If for some reason I’m unable to fit in my scheduled workout, I am upset, cranky… which leads to bingeing. Not good! Even a busy day of work doesn’t faze me if I fit in a great run earlier in the day (like my 7 miler on Friday – I was glowing all day!!)

- I hate working out after work. Work has been very busy and stressful, which means that my usual lunch time workouts (my favorite time to exercise!) had to be pushed back. The problem is, after a long day at work, all I want to do is come home and relax. I know that exercise will make me feel better, but I just really don’t want to do it. I start feeling guilty about the fact that I don’t want to go, which leads to more stress… and eventually bingeing. SO, I think I figured it out… I think if for some reason I can’t get in a workout before the end of the work day, I’m just going to skip it (unless I really feel like doing it). One day without exercise won’t kill me but the stress and overeating that results from me making myself feel guilty about not exercising just might.

- I need to be flexible! I’ve skipped a few workouts all together because I didn’t feel like doing them that day. For instance, I had to do an interval run a few days ago. I was really dreading it that day… so I kept on thinking about how I had to do it, and finally waited long enough to the point where I was truly unmotivated, so I skipped it. Instead I bet I could go to a kickboxing class which would have been a lot of fun (no self pep talk required!). This would have been WAY better than skipping a day of working out all together! On a related note, I realized that I don’t like running 2 days in a row, so I changed my training schedule to reflect this. Making exercise something you look forward to makes it easier to stick to the schedule (I know it’s nothing new, but I found this to be especially true this week so I’m making changes accordingly)!

- Making time for people in my life is not a waste. For the first few days of my blogging vacation, I was feeling guilty about not blogging… I have a huge backlog of things I want to blog about that I really do need to prepare some of the posts ahead of time, or else I’ll start going crazy again. But then I realized that spending time with my husband and friends is extremely important! During this week, I randomly went out for a drink with Adam on Monday, hosted friends for a Celtics/Bruins game watching on Thursday, went out to dinner + drinks on Friday, to a grilling party on Saturday and a brunch on Sunday. That’s a whole lot more time that I’ve spent with friends (and Adam!!) than I remember in recent history. It felt great to just hang out with the people I care about!  And… for the most part I made healthy food choices, so I was healthy and sane

- My blog readers make me super happy! So here is a funny story. I went for a run on Friday afternoon. I decided to not push myself too hard. The goal was just to complete 7 miles. I didn’t even look at my watch. It was hard but I kept on thinking about how proud of myself I will be when I’m done and I did it (and btw, my pace was 8:40 – I was VERY happy with that)! I’m sure I looked like hell the entire time because honestly after the 1st mile the smile on my face is typically erased and I start thinking about how hard running really is. Anyways, that’s not the point of my story. On Saturday morning I woke up to an email from Amy. Amy is a reader from LA who happened to be in Boston and saw me running by the Charles River during lunch on Friday. She didn’t say hello to me during lunch (I don’t blame her – I’m sure I don’t look particularly friendly when I run) but I’m so glad she wrote that email. It made me feel like a celebrity being spotted on the streets of Boston! I felt SO cool and could not wait to start typing another post. Thank you, Amy, for making my day, and thank you my wonderful readers for all your support. I hope I inspire you on occasion, but do know that you inspire me too!

Now you probably want to know what I’ve been eating this past week, right? I still took pictures of most things so here they are (insert here some random fruit and nuts, some salads, 2 slices of pizza at a working lunch, a delicious tomato/swiss/avocado turkey burger at a bbq, a few pistachioats cookies, and a few meals that I’m hiding from you at the moment because they deserve a separate post, and I think you have basically all of my eats right here). 3 things were especially worth noting:

- I had my first green moster and I loved it! I used Angela‘s “green monster for beginners recipe” with spinach (instead of kale). Yum! Of course now I can’t find a link to the actual recipe but I think I put in 1 frozen banana, a cup of almond milk, a few ice cubes, 1T ground flaxseeds, 3 cups of spinach and some blackberries.  I’m waiting for my bananas to turn yellow to have another one!!

- I enjoyed quinoa for breakfast! Heidi is a genius! This warm and nutty cinnamon quinoa recipe is so satisfying… delicious whole grains with a touch of sweetness. As you can see I added some nonfat yogurt on the side and drizzled the whole thing with agave nectar. Yogurt frosting… Yum! Thanks Amanda for reminding me of this lovely recipe

- I had a baking itch when our friends came over on Thursday so I quickly searched Cookie Madness (my go-to cookie recipe source… you can see why from the blog title, right?) for an easy brownie recipe. I didn’t want to get too fancy – just a good old brownie was what I was craving so the outstanding baked sale brownies recipe sounded perfect. These guys are not very healthy, but definitely delicious. I used 1/2 milk chocolate because that’s what I had on hand, so they came out a little light in color and not intensely chocolaty but the texture was great! I’d say they were a cross between a brownie and a blondie. I topped 1/2 of the pan with chopped walnuts and left the rest plain (as requested by some of our guests).  Yum yum yum.

And now on to the rest of the eats (scroll over for descriptions)…

And there were a few drinks in between all this food…

(+ a Samuel Adams summer ale)

Yup, this girl eats a lot!

I really enjoyed my little vacation but I’m also really excited to come back. This week did make me realize that although blogging has become a huge part of my life, I have to give it up to some extent in order to fit in other things that are very important to me as well (unfortunately there is only 24 hours in the day… and I do need to sleep for about 7 of those hours – really cramps my style ). I’ve decided that I’m going to try really hard to limit 4 posts/week. I think I’m going to do 2 journal-like entries/week and the other 2 will be random posts, covering recipes, product reviews, restaurant reviews, fitness, and life in general. For the food journal entrees, I’ll be happy to do multiple day recaps (like above – with a few highlights + lots of pics for the rest) or I could do true food model days (with calorie counts for each meal/snack + total at the end).  Which one would you guys prefer? I can’t decide what’s better!

Oh last thing – the condo I mentioned before fell through Sad, but we’ve moved on. Hopefully we’ll find an even better place soon. Right?