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!

BREAKFAST

Oikos, 1/2 banana, healthy and sane YouTrailMix

Lots of good stuff in there.

LUNCH

A few days ago I saw Shannon’s post on shaved asparagus & egg pizza and decided that I had to make that right away. I had all the ingredients on hand… except wait, my pizza dough got moldy. Bleh. Tortilla wrap to the rescue!

I used 1 oz of goat cheese and only 1 egg to make it a lunch sized meal. It was a really fun dish but I think more goat cheese would balance it would more. It needed something else. Ooh, maybe some hot sauce… or more goat cheese. Ha.

Runny egg yolk…

I was actually on a conference call while making and eating this so there was no time to make a side salad as I planned. I grabbed a cherry & chocolate granola bar instead. I LOVE these bars!!

So here is the first new thing I tried today – while eating lunch/working, I was icing my foot. It’s been sore since the half (actually it’s been sore after most long runs lately but obviously 13.1 miles is the longest run I’ve done and it’s taking forever to recover). I’ve been stretching, getting massages on occasion, but I’ve never iced! It felt so much better right after but I think I was just numb. It still hurts a bit now. I’m going to keep it low impact for the next few days.

SNACKS

+ almonds + roasted broccoli. I roasted a bunch while at home waiting for our new dining room table to deliver and munched on it throughout the afternoon. SO good! Back at the office, I also had a mojo bar. We’re all out of fruit. I hate snacking on bars all day long but you do what you gotta do. I told you I was hungry all day!

WORKOUT

Another new thing – I tried pilates at a real pilates studio last night. The pilates at my gym got so lame but I know it can be a good workout. We used a circle and some 2lb weights. I forgot that there are all these “gadgets” you can use in pilates. I remember using the circle back in the day when I was going to Healthworks. Maybe they have better classes there than my current gym. I’m going to have to check it out. For now, I got a mini membership at the Boston Body pilates studio through buywithme and I can’t wait to get more into it. They have reformers too. I have a personal training scheduled for next Monday. So fun!!!

DINNER

You guys didn’t tell me how amazing rhubarb is!!! That’s another new ingredient for me to cook with – I bought some at the farmers market last week and planned a meal around it. I followed the recipe for superb marinated pork fillet roasted on rhubarb from Jamie Oliver’s Happy Days with the Naked Chef (recipe can be found here).

Of course I had to healthify it a bit. I used ONE tablespoon of oil instead of FIVE (come on Oliver, that’s so unnecessary!). I also used 2 slices of prosciutto per pork chop instead of 5 (does he like the number 5 or something?).

I used the orzo blend from TJ’s to serve this dish over. I made this before pilates but had to run to the class and I was dreaming of it.

And it was even BETTER than I could have imagined. The pork got smoky from the prosciutto juices and the rhubarb was so tender, juicy and sour. I just loved that sourness. Next time I’m going to quadruple the amount of rhubarb. Amazing!!!

The last of sour cream ice cream for dessert.

Have you tried anything new lately?

After a day full of delicious and pretty healthy meals, I found myself snacking on some fresh bread with sundried tomato pesto, which went undocumented. And then of course there were too many almonds. I didn’t feel great afterwards physically but this is where my mindset about this situation could make or break my night, or even the next day. I had 2 choices: understand that some days we are just hungrier than others and also that I have a weakness for roasted almonds which can only be controlled by portioning them out before hand. This is the reasonable approach and if taken, could let me move on with my life… like a normal person. My other choice was to view this as a failed attempt at eating reasonably and mindfully. I am no longer counting calories so listening to my hunger cues is key to maintaining my weight. The problem with the second approach is that of course it’s negative and not constructive. This kind of mindset would only bring me down and make me question other things in my life because that’s exactly what happens when I’m in “that” kind of mood. How many of you believe that the first approach is the right one? How many of you can’t help but take on the second one? The same situation can take on a really different life, depending on your perspective. I’m happy to report that I let this little incident slide. I just brushed it off and ate like I would (read: healthy + yummy eats) the next day (see below). Your perspective can make a big difference. I am questioning my own ways of viewing things and mindfully trying to take the right approach. As a result, I’ve been much happier lately. I think the sunshine may have helped a little too.

Now let’s talk food + fitness

BREAKFAST

Green monster: 1/4 block of silken tofu, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 frozen banana, frozen spinach, frozen organic wild blueberries, 1/4t xantham gum, 1/8t guar gum

Toppings: Zoe’s granola + dried bing cherries

I love the crunchy cereal in every few “bites.” This was a delicious combo

MID-AFTERNOON/PRE-WORKOUT SNACK

I actually ate only 1/2 of this banana. This is definitely one of my favorite snacks, although a big messy.

WORKOUT

We have summer weather here in Boston (like 80*!!) and I’ve been taking full advantage of it by incorporating more outdoor runs. Yesterday I ran for 5.25 miles (taking a short walk in the mega sun at some point for maybe 2 minutes). Warm up + cool down walks also amounted to about a mile. I was a giant sweaty mess at the end. It was a tough run. I’m trying to work up to 6+ miles over this week and maybe even attempt some double digits soon. Man, taking time off from running is really making it difficult for me to come back. I’m determined though.

LUNCH

This next picture is lame but this lunch was delicious!

Ww Tuscane pane, edamame spread, grilled asparagus + grilled peppers, feta cheese

Fantastic sandwich! I just love eating fresh foods like that. It makes me feel so good, knowing how well I’m feeding my body. And seriously, just the thought of this sandwich makes me a little more excited. It was the perfect lunch!

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK

I shared another one of these little packets with Adam at night.

DINNER

Yes, go ahead, start drooling now.

Manchego-stuffed pork chops with roasted red-pepper pepita sauce (recipe can be found here).

+ fiddleheads! I steamed these guys for 7 minutes then quickly sauteed them with garlic and 1tsp of EVOO on a hot skillet. They were so yummy – reminded me of a cross between sauteed spinach and snap peas with a texture of tender asparagus. Yummy.

The manchego stuffed pork chops were of course the stars, though. This recipe was so simple and produced such flavorful results. I forgot how much I love manchego cheese (I nibbled on a little square while prepping this meal). The roasted red pepper-pepita sauce also freshens up the indulgent, cheesy pork chop.

I think it’s going on my favorites list! [PS. I only ate 1/2 of what you see here. 1/2 of a pork chop just doesn't photograph well so I took a picture of the whole thing and saved what I left on the plate for lunch the next day.]

MID-EVENING SNACK (at photography class)

Chocolate white chocolate chip cookie

And once again, I’m running late for work. Story of my life. Peace.

I kept the menu simple but of course made sure to cook some of my FIL’s favorites – pasta bolognese, fresh homemade rolls… + a special surprise dessert.

Since pasta was going to be the main star ingredient, I wanted to make sure we got the best fresh pasta we could find. Good thing we had a Groupon from Dave’s Fresh Pasta in Sommerville. It was a bit of a drive (not far but with a billion traffic lights in took forever) but the place was so cool! Dave’s offers pasta and ravioli (with the most unique fillings!) made fresh daily. They also have monthly specials for ravioli and sauces.  For the pasta, you can indicate the kind you want (I chose whole wheat) and the cut (see picture for options below).

Pappardelli is my favorite pasta cut and I thought it would go perfectly with the pork bolognese dish I had in mind.

Freshhhhh!

I made a full-fat dessert but decided to keep dinner “lighter” by following this recipe from Cooking Light for spaghetti with pork bolognese. It sounded quite rich already. I believe the “trick” is to use a mixture of ground pork tenderloin (very lean) and regular ground pork (fattier). The guy at the Whole Foods meat counter laughed at Adam when he asked for ground pork tenderloin, but I knew we could just grind it ourselves. We got a pound of pork tenderloin, and after 10 pulses in the food processor, it was perfect! [PS - if you do this, don't pulse for more than 10 pulses, otherwise it will become a pork paste - not exactly the consistency desired here]. I also omitted the onions and celery (we don’t care for either) and used organic bacon instead of pancetta since we already had it in the house. The sauce took a while (not hard, just time consuming) but at the end we had a giant bowl of papardelle with pork bolognese for our (um, my) efforts.

This pasta was rich with A LOT of pork.

I also made some no-knead overnight parmesan and thyme rolls (recipe from Cooking Light can be found here). The picture in the magazine just looked too good and the no-knead promise eluded me into thinking that this was going to be easy. Well, there were certainly a few problems with these guys for me. My yeast seemed dead (I tried it twice and didn’t see any bubbles but went ahead anyway), it didn’t roll very pretty so I cut the rolls in half (I think that was a good decision anyway); I didn’t let it rise for a full hour (since I wasn’t sure that the yeast was fully active, I didn’t bother waiting the entire time)… but they came out all right!

My plate:

I didn’t realize that the traditional bolognese is made with red meat (I knew it, it just didn’t click that this was not what I was making) but it was still pretty good. Not to-die-for amazing but quite good. Adding a pinch of nutmeg and simmering with the cinnamon stick did add nice warmth to this dish. As to the rolls – I really enjoyed the thyme, and they were a little nutty from the olive oil. A little butter went a long way on these.

The pasta was quite rich so I ate only a little over half of it, but I did have this whole glass of Honey Moon Vognier.

Oh, and a slice of Boston cream pie!

It’s my FIL’s favorite, and we all enjoyed it. And yes, you’re going to have to wait for more details on it until the next post.

What’s your favorite kind of cake?

No, not spices. It’s my new kitchen (with this awesome built-in spice drawer) that makes me smile every time I walk into the house and I cannot wait to get in there and cook something healthy and delicious! Why waste calories on stupid stuff when you can have a satisfying meal? There are so many recipes I’ve marked over the past month and a half of construction, I don’t have enough meals in a day to execute all of them. But I’m up for the challenge! Now, should we take a look at that spice drawer again? [And yes, I alphabetized them!]

Yesterday the black peppercorns were the star of dinner.

I haven’t participated in CEiMB in almost 2 months now. This was a great recipe to dive back into it! I used to hate pork but pork tenderloin turned that around – it’s lean and tender and I’m pretty sure it’s one of my husband’s favorite meats (we discovered it together). For this reason, when I saw that Rachel of Rachel Hearts Food chose Ellie’s pork au poivre as this week’s featured recipe, I was more than happy to jump back on the CEiMB wagon.

This recipe was easy and had a very short ingredients list – perfect for a weeknight meal!

Gena’s carrot fries (found through Thinspired) made for a perfect side dish! Adam was making fun of me when I started making these but I knew they’d be amazing. I cut up a bunch of carrots (maybe 3/4 lb?) and used 1T of coconut oil. I think I’ll cut down on the oil even further next time, there seemed to be more than ample amount of it, but let me tell you… there will be a next time. Soon! Adam quickly stopped making fun of me after tasting these babies. They reminded us both of sweet potato fries due to a subtle sweetness from the coconut oil (I think that’s an important ingredient!). SO so good!! Adam said to add this recipe to our short list of “favorites.” Yup, carrot fries need to be on our favorites list. I’ll leave it at that.

Veggies take over the world! Or at least this plate… (carrot fries were accompanied by garlicky string beans which I just stir-fried while the wine sauce was reducing)

Did I mention this pork au poivre was great? It was! Tender, juicy, flavorful – we both loved it!

Oops, don’t forget the wine sauce!! I’d double the sauce amount next time… it was quite nice.

So yeah, dinner was amazing. Let’s fly through the rest of the eats.

BREAKFAST

Bacon, egg and cheese on a FFL english muffin + coffee

Breakfast of champions! Or something like that

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK

1/2 blueberry muffin with 1T Barney Butter + tea

Oh yeah…

WORKOUT – 75 minute vinyasa class. It was great today. I was almost able to do the crow pose. Yay for progress!

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK

1/2 cup reduced fat cottage cheese + 2 clementines

The clementines deserve a spot at the front and center too

MORE SNACKS

I finally got my last package of the bake sale for Haiti winnings. This one included some peanut butter/choc chip “granola bars” and banana bread.

These granola bars are basically bar cookies… and they are amazing!!!!!

It took a lot of will power to only eat 1. They are full of oats, seeds, choc chips and peanut butter – so dense and buttery. Oh yeah, there IS butter in them. Like I said, not exactly granola bars but damn, worth every calorie for sure! (I can provide you guys with the recipe if you’re interested).

The banana bread was nice too

I had 1/2 of this slice.

And that’s how you do it!

Do you ever lose motivation to keep eating healthy or exercising? What pushes you to keep at it? I have a feeling not everyone can just redo their kitchen

Um, I’m sorry to get off topic for a minute, but how good looking is my husband?!! My heart is pounding a bit right now.

Back to the organic strawberry ale… I loved it!!! It had a definite strawberry smell and flavor but was not too overpowering or sweet for my taste. I loved it so much, Adam decided to give me the rest of his glass after a few sips and grabbed a different beer for him. Yum!!

If you see this label in the store, I highly recommend you pick yourself up a bottle.

After the pep-talk from my husband, a movie and some yummy strawberry ale, I felt a lot more relaxed and ready to have a better day tomorrow. I evaluated what went wrong and wrote out a game plan for the day, including waking up early to do my hair and pick out a cute outfit. I realized that silly things like that actually make a huge difference in my overall mood and how I handle unrelated situations. Interesting, no? I’m happy to report the game plan worked and today was awesome!!

BREAKFAST

Food for Life english muffin with Jiffy’s natural peanut butter (I actually love it) + cherry preserves

Heaven!

MID-MORNING SNACK

Oikos + pomegranate seeds + a handful of Nature’s Path pumpkin granola

The granola is so buttery and indulgent tasting. I may have to invest in a box.

LUNCH

Cafe Jaffa chicken kebab wrap (with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles in sesame tahini dressing). The chicken was so flavorful and the wrap was amazingly fresh. I know it wasn’t low cal, but it tasted quite healthy – lots of veggies!

MID-AFTERNOON SNACKS

1 of these nut-stuffed medjool dates (my dad brought them for me from Israel!)

+ a juicy orange

DINNER

I made a boo-boo at dinner – I mixed up the spices! I followed this recipe from Cooking Light for pork chops with ancho chile rub and raspberry glaze, and used Adobo spice instead of ancho chile. Oops! I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention. The problem with this mix-up is that the Adobo spice has salt as the first ingredients and I added additional salt to the rub. The pork was SO salty – inedible in my opinion. I scraped it off and added giant dollops of raspberry preserve to sweeten it. It helped me “get through” dinner but that’s about it (Adam didn’t hate it as much as I did so he’ll be eating the leftovers, I hope).

The couscous with dried cherries was the best part by far! I’m allowed a screw-up once in a while, right?

I “washed” the salty pork down with some TJ’s dark chocolate with almonds. Muuuuuuch better

Good day How was yours?

Last thing – the winner of the Waterpik giveaway is #8. I also never received addresses from 2 NuNaturals giveaway winners so I’m redrawing again – #65 and #42 are the new winners (Lauren and Yelena, I got your addresses before!).  All 3 winners, please email me your address, please [Btw, I don't send out emails to the winners because I want my regular readers to win, not some random drop by's. I think that's fair! ]

All right, I’m off to catch up on So You Think You Can Dance! Cya

Anyways, before the tear jerking pecans jumped into my mouth, the day really was wonderful. Let’s recap, shall we?

BREAKFAST

Banana oats with raisins, walnuts, 2 crumbled apple and carrot shortbread cookies + nonfat yogurt

Breakfast pretty much rocked!

Then Adam and I realized that it was amazing outside, so instead of cleaning we decided to go for a walk. So much more fun! Somehow we ended up in China Town, and decided to grab a little snack/lunch…

LUNCH

We’ve heard that Windsor Dim Sum Cafe is one of the best in Boston for dim sum. It was around 3pm, so we easily were able to get a table. Excellent! The place is quite small with just a few tables and the atmosphere is nothing to write home (err blog) about, but the food made up for it!

We started with some jasmin tea…

… and ordered a few favorites: steamed shrimp dumplings, bbq pork buns and glutinous rice noodles with shrimp

This was on par with the best dim sum we had in Hong Kong!!! The steamed shrimp dumplings were especially incredible – so tender and juicy. I had a 3rd one We’ll definitely be back to Windsor Cafe!

Our adventures around China Town and Boston continued, first with a large supermarket. Adam was in ramen noodle heaven

I couldn’t get over how gorgeous Boston Common looked. Wow, the fall is really here!! The pictures do not do it justice. The park looked breath-taking!

Newbury St had a little chocolate surprise for us…

These free chocolate samples were the perfect post lunch dessert. I took a picture inside but was told that’s not allowed (sorry, I can’t share it with you ). The place IS adorable!!!!

SNACKS

1 blondie + 1/2 brownie with cherries

A persimmon (I ended up eating only half)

3 little endive boats with orange slices, goat cheese and candied walnuts

DINNER

Ham, avocado, grape tomatoes and TJ’s white bean basil hummus in a TJ’s ww wrap + baby carrots

Kick-ass combo, if I do say so myself!! For some reason, though, I was still hungry, so I kept eating…

1 serving of sea salt somersaults

Still obsessed with these babies! So nutty, crunchy and delicious. Worth the shipping price, I promise

And here are the evil maple pecans from Whole Foods. I got a container on Friday night and now it’s gone This handful was just the beginning

Clearly this is a trigger food I can not have in the house. Oh well, you live, you learn.

On a non-food related note, I just caught up on the last few weeks of So You Think You Can Dance. Do any of you watch this show? I used to do ballroom dancing when I was little (and actually for a bit when I was in college), and really miss it watching the show. I wonder if there are any decent classes in Boston. Something to research This show is not only beautiful but also so incredibly inspirational. These dancers transform themselves into stars by working hard and learning from each other. I think it can be applied to other aspects of our lives. I’m really touched by this show. That and the Biggest Loser. What are your favorite shows? Mine also include “How I Met Your Mother”, “The Office,” and “Lost.”

Hope you had a great weekend! Check back soon; I’m posting a giveaway in a bit.

Just for kicks, here is a link to my very first post. Wow, I was in denial about summer being over then too. I guess I haven’t changed that much.

DINNER

I’m starting with dinner today because it was so fabulous. We had friends over, our first mini dinner party at our new condo. I was nervous! Our new oven sucks (it takes nearly double the time to cook most things) and I was so afraid the food would not come out right. To minimize the damage, I went with old favorites:

• Goat cheese/date/pecan stuffed pork tenderloin
• Cider-glazed roots with cinnamon walnuts
• Apple crisp (actually this was the first time I tried it, but with Tina’s review I knew it would be a winner)

I asked our guest Katie to bring a salad, and she brought an incredible fall themed one: mixed greens, roasted butternut squash, grilled pears, raisins and gorgonzola, dressed in Newman’s Own light cranberry walnut dressing.

Doesn’t it look like it was served in a fancy restaurant? Gorgeous!!

The veggies for the main course took the longest to make. I peeped and chopped the beauties the night before. It’s very important to prep ahead time intensive dishes! Before (I still can’t believe colors like this naturally exist in nature!)…

After nearly 2 hours of baking…

+ pork

All together:

My plate (I had another slice of the pork… it came out incredible!)

Dessert – before:

After – with Sweet Scoops vanilla frozen yogurt

Mmm, warm apple crisp with creamy frozen yogurt = perfect ending to a fall meal (I had a tiny bit of seconds )

We had such a great time with Mike and Katie – I want to start entertaining more at our place! The conversation was flowing, and so was the wine. Oh did I mention we drank 3 bottles of wine between the 4 of us? No? Well we did. I told you we had a great time

OTHER EATS

Do you like entertaining? Any tips or go-to recipes for all of us newbies?

So it was about 2pm. I just recently finished my delicious (and very filling!) lunch, and as I’m sitting in front of my computer trying to work on my report, I get a huge craving for something warm and baked (read: a chocolate chip cookie!). I think about my lunch and how it’s sitting in my stomach a little bit like a rock, and how a cookie could not fit in it at all; yet the urge to pick up my wallet and walk over to Paradise Bakery for my crack of choice is overwhelming. Why is that, you ask? I’m worried about my project! It’s that simple. I identified this “craving” for exactly what it was, and made a conscious decision to NOT deal with my anxiety related to my project by eating a cookie. A cookie won’t help this problem – only working on my project will! I’ve done this walk to Paradise Bakery too many times. I can tell you from experience the cookie did not do my project for me About an hour later I had a snack, which I planned for later. That gave me a minute to enjoy my food (there was even a tiny cookie incorporated into the snack) without breaking my diet. Much better.

I’m making a conscious effort, as seen above, to solve my problems instead of emotionally eating my problems away. They never really do go away; there just becomes a new problem – me hating myself for overeating. Join me today, and stop the emotional eating! Solve your problems without cookies (unless the problem is that you want a cookie )!

TODAY’S EATS:

Breakfast: Leftover apple pancakes with nutty topping

Mid-morning/pre-workout snack: 1/2 FFL english muffin with 1/2 mashed banana + 1 Barney Butter packet

Lunch: leftover kung pao tofu with brown rice

Mid-afternoon snack: 1 oikos with 1/2 pear and 1 small choc chip cookie

Dinner was almost a disaster. I planned on making a maple roasted pork tenderloin but last minute realized I was missing 2 key ingredients (1 of which was maple syrup!). Doh. Quickly scanning through my saved recipes saved the day! I found Lauren’s post on “pork fingers” and knew it was perfect. The pork fingers were made by following this recipe from Eating Well for almond-crusted pork with honey-mustard dipping sauce. I had some pre-sliced almonds on hand and decided to just leave them like that instead of pulsing them further in the food processor (excellent, 1 less thing to wash! My husband will thank me later for it ). I thought the crunch from the almonds was perfect… I’m glad I left them chunky like that.

The sauce was Adam’s favorite part. He absolutely LOVED it! Here is a quote: “I love this sauce! I want to drink it. No, I want to bathe in it. Make a note of that. Yeah, I think I’m about to start writing poems about this sauce. You need to keep it on hand at all times!” Haha. I actually found the sauce to be too sweet (even after adding a little more dijon mustard than called for) but a review like that made me happy. It was pretty yummy with the pork fingers dipped into it. A little goes a long way here…

One last note on this recipe. Both my husband and I enjoyed it, but we agreed that chicken would be a great substitute for the pork here from the economical point of view. The pork actually tasted like chicken. No need to spend the extra $$$ on the pork if you can’t taste the difference

Oh yeah, I also had a glass of cabernet with dinner. Actually still enjoying it right now

TODAY’S WORKOUT:

I took the abs + spinning classes during lunch today. The abs class kicked my butt (err abs) because I haven’t been doing much of abs exercises lately, and spinning was gloriously sweaty. I loved every minute of it!

All right, I’m off to bed. This girl needs her beauty sleep

Breakfast: FFL english muffin with Barney Butter and a small banana

Mid-morning snack: red grapes + chocolate mousse Crazy Camel hummus

First bite:

I guess the grapes were supposed to taste like cherries when covered in hummus, but guess what? They tasted like grapes! I thought this combo was too sweet actually, so I ate the grapes first, then slowly enjoyed the chocolate mousse. The stuff is so yummy!

About 1.5 hours later, I went on a speedy 4 mile run – 8:26 average pace. Nice!

Lunch: leftover pork tenderloin stuffed with goat cheese, dates and pecans + 1/3 giant sweet potato and sweet pea leaves/avocado salad.

I’ve made this pork before here, and it turned Adam into a goat cheese lover. This is actually his favorite meal I make, and it’s so easy! It looked a little better at dinner the night before…

Dinner: Ellie Krieger’s macaroni and 4 cheeses

The photo is very orange and bluh looking but it’s a very delicious dish. I don’t think it really tastes like mac and cheese, per se. It is a cheesy sauce over macaroni but the winter squash makes the whole thing sweeter and the reasonable amount of cheese (reasonable = not a crazy amount) makes it less creamy and sinful than your average mac and cheese. I’ve made this before and will make it again, I’m just saying if you make it too, don’t expect a buttery/cheesy/creamy mac and cheese. It’s just a yummy meal in it’s own category, in my opinion.

Oh, I also stole a sip of Adam’s Malbec

Dessert was fun. My sister got us some Max Brenner chocolates and dishes for some holiday a while ago, and I found it while packing. It’s been way too long since we got this (sorry, Innz) but I was always trying to “be good” so we didn’t even put a dent in most of the stuff. It’s still good though! I assembled a little suckao (hot chocolate shot) for myself by lighting a candle and warming up some skim milk.

Ready to sip:

The spoon is the coolest! It has a straw built in:

Yum! Better late than never, right?

Hope your day is going well. I can’t believe the Healthy Living Summit activities are starting tomorrow. I’m getting really excited!!