Oh and btw, you all were right. I was not hungry at all today due to a very indulgent weekend (yesterday kind of became indulgent again) so I still nourished my body but consumed less calories than usual. I guess it does balance out. Wanna see what I ate today?

BREAKFAST

TJ’s organic fiber blueberry muffin + coffee

[265 calories]

MID-MORNING SNACK

2 clementines and a sample packet of somersaults – still love them!!

[140 calories]

LUNCH

As usual on Mondays, I get to come home for lunch. I made a small detour through TJ’s to stock up on veggies. The star ingredient was Gena’s carrot miso dressing (found through Soap & Chocolate).

The dressing came together quickly since I had all the ingredients on hand and the vitamix is a beast. It was almost “whipped.” Since I couldn’t just eat it with a spoon, I decided to make a salad. Might as well, right?

Mixed greens, steamed broccoli, shredded carrots, chopped cucumber, shrimp + miso carrot dressing

Here are all the greens + shrimp!

To be honest, something was missing there and the whipped texture of the dressing was actually a bit strange. I was imagining it would taste like the dressing you get on house salads at Japanese restaurants but that wasn’t the case. Also, I may have overdone it on the ginger or maybe it was missing salt? After a few bites of the salad I went to the fridge for water and noticed a jar of spicy Italian pepper rings. For some reason those sounded appealing and they really saved this meal for me. My mouth was on fire… in a good way!

Dessert: caramel oikos. Oh yeah, that’s the stuff!

[All together - 280 calories. I was actually shocked to find how low that was!]

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK

[180 calories]

WORKOUT – Monday’s usual – Rack it Up. I just love that burn!!

DINNER

Ever since trying Shannon’s savory pumpkin bread pudding, it’s been on my list of must make meals. I knew Adam would love it. I mean this screams “man meal”, since bread, sausage, cheese and sour cream are the main ingredients. This dish even made it to my top 9 homemade meals in 2009  - it was that good. Tonight Adam finally had a chance to taste Shannon’s masterpiece – made by moi this time.

The verdict? He LOVED it! I know my husband so well. I thought Shannon’s execution was a bit better but I still enjoyed it.

[450 calories]

This was one hearty dinner, let me tell you. I am STUFFED hours later!! No desire for dessert or anything. I think one of the key “tricks” for avoiding over snacking is to have super filling meals. This was the perfect example of it. Could be a little heavier in the veggie department but I sure took care of that during lunch.

Total calories consumed: 1316. I can’t believe how crazy full I am for such a small amount of calories. I guess I’m like a camel – I stored this weekends’ eats for later.

Looking at this post, apparently I ate a lot of orange foods. So just for fun – what’s your favorite orange food? Any favorite way to consume it?

there was some crying happening at lunch time today

To help ease the pain, Coco brought me some Sprinkles pumpkin spike cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. How can you not smile when you see these?!

Cupcakes make everything better. Coco, you are awesome!!!!!!

I had 1 right away… um and then had the 2nd one! The cake was so moist and the frosting was just delectable. The Sprinkles mix comes with the dots and all. I need to get me some asap!! (Inna, remember that Sprinkles red velvet mix I got you for xmas – make them!!!! )

Coco also noticed my iphone and said – why don’t you just use that at the race? Beauty and brains this girl got! I got myself a new armband for the iphone ($30 instead of $150 for the new nano) and did an easy 35 minute run after work (no garmin – I probably ran at 9 minute pace but made sure I wasn’t pounding… gotta have fresh legs for Sunday!!!). It felt great to hit the pavement one more time before the race. Seriously, I am officially addicted to running and am beyond excited for the race in 2 days. Wholly shit. 2 days, really?! Can’t wait!

Today is also Thursday, which means some Ellie in my belly For this week The Healthy Hostess chose the chop suey. I actually saw Ellie make this last week and almost put it on my to-make list. It looked so healthy and perfect to satisfy a craving for Chinese food.

I was right! This was seriously delicious. My father in law came over to help us work on the condo and he hates rice, so I subbed soba noodles for brown rice and omitted the scallions, otherwise following the recipe pretty much to the T. Dinner took slightly longer than expected so my FIL never got to taste it, but Adam and I sure enjoyed it. The crunchy wonton “crisps” were so fun! I can picture them in a great Asian inspired salad in our future. Yum!

Dessert: apple crisp with vanilla frozen yogurt… but of course

OTHER EATS

TJ’s organic blueberry bran muffin (these are super filling and delicious if you like muffins that “taste healthy”… which I do!)

(ate the whole larabar)

My “party snacks” while I was watching the Biggest Loser. Yeah yeah yeah, counterproductive.

+ leftover “Japanese pizza” (okonomiyaki) for lunch. It tasted even better after a few days in the fridge!

Have you ever done something as silly as leaving an ipod at your gym TWICE? I left my watch and ring (don’t worry Adam – not the wedding or engagement ring!) on the elliptical once too, but thankfully someone actually brought those to the front desk! Jeez, I’m really not very smart sometimes  

Anyways enough complaining I have some fun free goodies I got in the mail last night.  Yay!  They made me feel like a real blogger and definitely put a bounce in my step for the rest of the night.

Goodie #1…

I actually got a case of these babies, but Adam immediately put them in the fridge so I just grabbed a few to snap a photo.  You see, the generous Diana (the POM blogger) sent us a case of these POM juices while we were on vacation.  Apparently these guys must be refrigerated but they sat in our mail room for 5 days until we finally picked them up.  Both me and my husband were SO bummed out.  We love pomegranates (see current header!) and were not sure if the juice went bad.  We stocked the fridge with them anyway, but Diana offered to send us another case instead.  Phew!  I hate wasting food and I probably would have cried if we had to pour them all out without a replacement to ease our pain I know you’ve seen these all over the blog world lately, but I’ll try to get creative with these.  Adam already grabbed one for his drive to work today, so he’ll provide us all with his first review of the juice “straight-up” soon

Goodie #2…

Have you seen this granola mixing site in the blogs lately?  I first spotted it on MizFit’s blog and was desperately hoping to win the prize.  I already have so many granola combinations going through my head.  The stuff is expensive but they use high quality ingredients and you can mix your own granola without doing all the work!  I think I’m going to become seriously addicted to this site… but first I wanted to taste their “bases” before really committing to a whole tube of the stuff.  I emailed the company and asked for a tiny sample of each (ok, I promised to review their product on my blog… why not, right? )  They not only agreed to send me the samples but shipped them overnight!  How’s that for nearly instant gratification   Can’t wait to try them!

Ok, so now I’m running late… let’s get to food

BEST MEAL OF THE DAY

After getting home from after-work drinks last night (the drinks were at P.F.Chang’s and greasy Chinese food sounded SO much better than tofu, especially after a few glasses of wine – unpictured) I fought the urge to order take out and lounge on the coach until I pass out.  Instead, I remembered that this delicious looking tofu recipe got the boot 2 days ago, only to be replaced by much less nutritious brownies and Barney Butter.  The day after was another huge splurge meal at L’Andana… so no, I was not going to let a few days of indulgences drag me down into an unhealthy hole.  Despite a little buzz going on, I collected myself and got to cooking.  I used this recipe for the orange pan-glazed tempeh… using extra firm tofu instead of tempeh (not a fan of tempeh!).  Heidi is a culinary genius so I had high hopes for this dish and I was not disappointed. [I only used 2 teaspoons of the oil]  It was sweet and sticky and yet refreshing (oranges make me feel like it’s summertime).  I was SO happy I went the healthy route, because the results were way more satisfying than anything else I would have ordered.  Let’s face it, guilt is not very tasty!  Some pics of my dinner (including 1/2 cup of rice and steamed broc)…

Yes, it annoyed me that the dinner wasn’t photogenic so I tried a different dish.  I’m anal like that sometimes.  The pictures still don’t do the tofu justice, but TRUST ME – it was goooood!  I went back for another slice and fought the urge to polish off the rest (when I have it for leftovers I’ll thank myself!).  The hubs also had a bite, and said he officially likes tofu now and I’m allowed to make more of it!  Sweet!!!

OTHER EATS

I tried something new here and mixed in some cottage cheese into the yogurt together with some pumpkin.  I think the cottage cheese killed the creamy texture of the chobani.  I won’t be doing this again!  I love each on their own – not together!

This salad was SO random.  I don’t think the flavors really went together. I still ate every bite though

There was also an unpictured serving of TJ’s nutty american trek mix.  It popped in my mouth when I was cooking

Total calories for the day: 1671

Ok, now I’m really late!  Hope you have a nice Friday and lots of fun plans for the weekend!!

BREAKFAST

I baked some pumpkin peanut butter chocolate chip muffins based on this recipe from Tina.  I’ve made these before a bunch of times, modifying the recipe slightly.  They always come out delicious!!  Today I realized I only had 1/2 cup of pumpkin left, so I added about 1/2 cup of apple sauce and started playing with the rest of the ingredients.  I also always make big muffins instead of minis (1 big muffin is just more satisfying to me than 2 mini ones) but today I broke out my mini-muffin pan.  Well, when I finally put my muffins into the oven, all proud of myself because those minis looked so cute, I realized I forgot to add the sugar!!!  Nooooo!  I took the pan out of the oven, scooped the batter out back into the bowl, added the sugar and then divided it back into 5 large muffins instead of 10 minis (the mini-muffin was a big mess post scooping).  I guess it wasn’t meant to be!  I won’t share my modifications because I think they are still not perfect.  The muffins tasted incredible (as always) but today they looked a little funny… they concaved in.  Oh well!  Here is one of these guys with a cup of coffee:

And here it is broken into… the chocolate chips melted all together inside.  It was like a malten pumpkin chocolate cake more than a muffin.  So good!

After finishing this yummy breakfast, while sipping on some coffee I browsed through cooking recipes trying to plan the menu for the week.  I love just relaxing like that!  A few hours later we went grocery shopping and I snacked on an apple and this new purchase:

I’ve tried a Mojo bar before (I think the pb flavor) and didn’t think it was anything special.  But after hearing good things about them I decided to try one again and I am so glad I did.  This mountain mix bar was really great!  Here it is up close – there are just so many goodies in there!  Awesome!!!

Being that I woke up super late tonight and dinner was supposed to be on the early side (a friend of mine, Katy, was coming over for dinner) the apple and the bar constituted my lunch.  They were the perfect snack/lunch and did a great job of tying me over until…

DINNER

For dinner tonight I wanted to make a root vegetable dish.  As I’ve mentioned before in this post, after reading the December issue of Eating Well I was dying to make all sorts of stuff with root vegetables.  I bought quite a few at the farmers market.  I made the shredded root vegetable pancakes earlier this week and today I wanted to use up the rest by making the cider-glazed roots with cinnamon walnuts.  These take a little bit of time (about 1.5 hours altogether) so I was glad to make it on a weekend night and especially so since we had company   I also wanted to make some simple grilled chicken for some extra protein and thought that something with maple syrup would go nicely with the sweet roasted veggies.  I marinated 2 lbs of chicken breast with 1T maple syrup, 1T peanut oil and 1.5T of dijon mustard (the marinade idea came from this recipe) for about 40 minutes and then grilled them on a cast iron grill pan.  Both came out so amazingly delicious (I was seriously proud of myself!) and worked together really well!  A really great fall dinner!… My husband and Katy both approved!

Here is my plate (the chicken piece isn’t as gigantic as it looks in this pic – it was about 5.5 oz raw):

Here are the roasted veggies upclose.  The pecans made them even more special!  Oh btw, they tasted like veggie candy

For dessert, I served some white chocolate cranberry bars to Katy but because I decided to make some more for Thanksgiving this Thursday, at the risk of over-eating them, I made another dessert for myself: 1/2 Arnold’s sandwich thin with 1/2 T almond butter, 1/2 small banana + a few choc chips.  This was my first time trying the sandwich thins and I was not impressed at all!  They said they were whole grain white bread and they tasted really white and processed.  I never eat white bread anymore so I guess my taste preference has changed.  My husband will probably love them.  Hehe.  Another weird thing with this dessert, I used the TJ’s almond butter.  I used to be absolutely obsessed with this stuff and had some at least once a day, but for some reason (probably because the single serving Barney Butter packets are so convenient) I haven’t had it in a while and today it tasted so bland.  It’s unsalted and again I used to be obsessed with it, but I guess after all pb and Barney Butter with salt, I can’t go back.  I guess I’ll use it in baking next time… or maybe I’ll just wait until my taste buds change their mind   Here is my little dessert with some vanilla tea:

I am totally stuffed now, which means no workout since it’s getting late and I won’t have time to digest.  It was a nice day though and I am ready for the upcoming week at work (it helps that it’s only a 3-day work week too!).

Total calorie count for the day: 1289 (thats what happens when you wake up late!)

BREAKFAST

We had no bananas in the house and I kind of get lost without bananas but I thought of a quick breakfast this morning that actually, to my surprise, ended up being very delicious. Here is the spread: apple cinnamon oats with apples and barney butter.

And my bowl up-close, with bb mixed in:

I cut up 1/2 a large apple into little chunks and microwaved them for 2 minutes. I then added to the bowl the Nature’s Path cinnamon apple instant oatmeal and a little over 1/2 cup of water. Microwaved the whole thing for another 75 seconds, topped it with some bb and voila. De-licious! On the side I had the rest of the apple, sliced. It was super creamy and satisfying. I was surprised to like it as much as I did, since there was no banana. You’ll see this combo again, I’m sure. It also kept me full for over 4 hours, although it could also be work stress. It’s just crazy busy and it’s not going to slow down until next year. Yikes!

SNACK

Around noon or so I still wasn’t really hungry but my mind started wondering. I definitely was in the mood for some chocolate. So despite bringing a different snack to work, I dug into my emergency 100 calorie chocolate bar. It’s my last one… I need to get more of them asap!

WORKOUT

Like I said before, work was crazy busy. I considered skipping my usual lunch workout but decided to just cut it short instead. I just feel so much better when I exercise and I didn’t want to have to drag myself to the gym after a long day at work. I’m so glad I made that choice! I’m going to have to deal with the same dilemma on daily basis. *Sigh*

I felt like running today so running I did. On the running schedule for the day was 5×400 interval run. I warmed up by walking for about 2.5 minutes, and then got right to business… about 1/2 mile run at 6.3mph and then the intervals began. I did five 1/4 mile intervals at 7.5 mph, 8 mph, 8.3 mph, 8.7 mph and finally at 9 mph. In between the intervals I rested by jogging at 6.2 mph for about 0.15 to 0.25 miles. I ran for a little while longer at around 6.5 mph for a total of 30 minutes, then walked for a minute and jumped on the ET for another 14 minutes. Total workout time: 45 minutes. Not bad!

Back to work…

LUNCH

Lunch were some leftovers. I made some turkey lasagna about a month ago, and froze 1/6 of it for later. Last night I took it out of the fridge when I was searching for something to eat for dinner. As the previous post notes, we ended up going out so I brought it for lunch today Here it is with some baby carrots on the side. It may not look appetizing but it was actually very delicious! Good to know that this stuff freezes well..

And a close up:

Still looks gross? Sorry. I had an adora disk for dessert

DINNER

I never got hungry for a second snack. Works for me! Dinner was a recipe I’ve wanted to make for a while. In fact, I bought the root veggies a few weeks ago and they’ve been waiting for me patiently in the fridge. I finally dug into the stash tonight! Here they are pre-shredding:

I don’t know the name of all of these. I can recognize the carrots but that’s about it. The recipe I made tonight was for the shredded root vegetable pancakes from Eating Well. They have a whole article on root vegetables in the December issue and I wanted to make every single one of them. I have a bunch more veggies left, so there will definitely be another appearance of these beauties At this point my camera died, so while recharging it I put everything together. No step by step pics, sorry, but here is the final product:

My dinner was 3 of the pancakes with 2 tablespoons of reduced fat sour cream and a salad with mixed greens, grape tomatoes, TJ’s golden berry medley and sunflower seeds (tossed in a little less than a tablespoon of Annie’s goddess dressing). Very veggiful!

Close-up of the pancakes…

And my salad:

I knew I was still low on calories for the day. I was planning on baking but it was getting late so I made a quicky healthy “dessert.” I was kind of low on protein today so that’s how I ended up with a yogurt base.

In the ramnican is some nonfat yogurt, pumpkin puree, pumpkin butter and Erin Baker’s double chunk granola. Pretty yummy, but I’m definitely making some real dessert tomorrow!

Btw, I find that counting calories really helps me with staying on track. I’m going to post my stats here to keep myself accountable. Today I ate about 1410 calories. It’s a bit on the low side (still within my range) probably because I ate so much during the weekend that I’m still living off the weekend storage

K, gotta prep for tomorrow. I have no idea what I’m eating and it’s getting late. Good night! ]]> http://healthyandsane.com/2008/11/back-to-the-real-world/feed/ 7 http://healthyandsane.com/2008/11/sweat-it-out/ http://healthyandsane.com/2008/11/sweat-it-out/#comments Fri, 14 Nov 2008 02:05:00 +0000 Elina http://adamholbrook.wordpress.com/2008/11/14/sweat-it-out/ OMG, can I just say how much I love the gym?!!!! I started the morning with the same stomach ache, trying to stay optimistic but the same symptoms of the last few days made me feel a little hopeless. I was just going through the motions, ate my breakfast, a snack and contemplated skipping the gym. Well, I’m so happy that I actually went, because I totally sweated out whatever bluh feeling I’ve had all week! I felt strong, I felt energized, I was totally back to my normal self. It felt SO GOOD! Anyways, let’s go back to that breakfast and snacks…

BREAKFAST

I put this concoction together last night: pumpkin pie yogurt

This bowl had about 3/4 c of TJ’s nonfat yogurt, 1/3 c pumpkin, 1/2 banana, 1 tablespoon of pumpkin butter and some Erin Baker’s peanut butter granola. Oh, and a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice Not bad! I missed the chocolate and nuts in my breakfast but I wanted to start the morning on a fresher note.

After finishing this bowl I wanted to continue munching, so I grabbed 1/2 serving of reduced fat wheat thins (actually it’s a different organic brand but it tastes the same and I forget the name of the brand) with 1/2 packet of Barney Butter. I forgot to take a picture right away, so here is a shot mid-way through eating

SNACK

As always I got the urge for chocolate, so I immediately grabbed the closest thing I could find: a zbar. Carrot sticks and cottage cheese (my originally planned snack) just wouldn’t do it today.

This is the honey graham kind… it was my first time trying it. I liked it! I can’t quite make-up my mind about zbars. The first time I tried one (the fudge brownie flavor) I thought it was the best thing ever and ordered 2 huge boxes of them on Amazon.com. Many months later I’m still working on my second box, because I never really crave these things (and I keep buying other bars to try out). I like them when I eat them, but for some reason the idea of one never appeals to me. I think the brownie kind is still my favorite, but this definitely was a good one.

WORKOUT

As mentioned at the beginning of the post, my workout kicked butt! I was just so happy the entire time; I could not believe what a difference it was making.

I originally was going to skip it altogether, then I thought about just going to the gym to take a shower and straighten my hair to make myself feel more refreshed. Finally I decided since I was already there, there is no reason not to jump on a treadmill and just do my 3 mile run. Fastforward to the end: I ran for 40 minutes (~ 4.5 miles) and did 20 minutes on the elliptical. I was feeling amazing! I could have kept going, but unfortunately I had to go back to work

LUNCH

As mentioned before, we’re leaving for NY tomorrow so lunch was a few leftover items… it was very satisfying and perfectly refreshing after my refreshing workout!

The star of my lunch was a smoked salmon/laughing cow and cucumber sandwich on a ww British muffin… and the side dish was simple but super delicious: mixed greens, grape tomatoes, cucumbers + 1 tablespoon of Annie’s goddess dressing. Perfect! Here is the sandwich:

And lunch altogether (dressing was mixed after the photo was taken – a dressed salad isn’t very photogenic )

This lunch was kind of late (around 3:30) but it kept me full for hours. I met up with a new friend after work at Starbucks where I got a vanilla coconut tea (sorry I forgot to take a picture in all the excitement). I sipped on that while we were chatting away about food and boys and I never got hungry until it was time for dinner.

DINNER

They are opening a Chipotle in our building and today was the grand-opening day, where they were giving out free burritos. My husband warned me that we were going weeks ago, so I was mentally prepared (and excited!) about dinner at Chipotle. Well, there was a slight change of plans because this is what was outside of Chipotle today:

Yeah, a HUGE line! This goes waaay back and it was dark and raining. No thank you, I can have it tomorrow, or next week. Man, people really love free food!

We quickly re-evaluated the situation. With me having no second snack and an overall relatively calorie-light day, I agreed to go out for some sushi. Sushi is quite healthy, you just have to watch how much of it you eat, because it definitely adds up. I knew I had some wiggle room and I haven’t had sushi in forever (actually we were planning on having it tomorrow in NY, but we’ll figure something else out). We tried a new place (new for us), Fin’s Sushi in Kenmore Square.

This place was great!!! We have a really nice sushi restaurant across the street from our building and hardly ever venture out to other ones, but I’m so glad we did today. It was small, but very modern and the sushi was super fresh. It is also BYOB, which we didn’t know today but will be cool for future visits. I could have eaten 3 times as much, but I was still in a really great healthy mentality so I kept my portions reasonable.

I started with some seaweed salad:

This is the whole dish… I probably ate 3/4 of it. I kind of picked at it throughout dinner.

And this is the sushi we ordered for the 2 of us:

Mine is the alaskan roll (salmon/cucumber/avocado), 1 tuna nigiri, 1 unagi nigiri and 2 yellowtail nigiri. I tried one of my husband’s spicy tuna maki for exchange of 1 alaskan maki and then my husband didn’t eat his salmon nigiri, so I had to help him out with it It was soooo delicious. I missed sushi!!

When we got home I wanted dessert so I had another raspberry brownie. I’m sure you guys are sick of seeing these but I’m still not sick of eating them Don’t worry, there are only 2 left and I think my husband will take care of them

And I finished off my day of eats with some hazelnuts:

There was another handful after these, but I put them away now and I’m very satisfied. What a great day!

Btw, I probably won’t be able to blog until Sunday night, but I’ll try to take lots of food pics when I’m in NY. There should definitely be some good eats there!

Thank you all again for your nice comments. You guys are the best! ]]> http://healthyandsane.com/2008/11/sweat-it-out/feed/ 9 http://healthyandsane.com/2008/10/pumpkin-goodness/ http://healthyandsane.com/2008/10/pumpkin-goodness/#comments Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:19:00 +0000 Elina http://adamholbrook.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/pumpkin-goodness/ Can I just say again how much I love having long weekend?! I woke up this morning without an alarm clock exactly 8 hours after I went to bed. It was 9am and I could allow myself to sleep even more, but I don’t like how sleeping in throws your schedule for the next two days (results in going to bed late that night and then not getting enough sleep the next morning… bad!). Plus, I started thinking about my breakfast in bed and once I came up with this concoction, I couldn’t wait to give it a whirl.

I had an open can of pumpkin puree in my fridge, so I decided to base my breakfast around it. Here is what I came up with:

And a picture up close:

Mmm, the chocolate chips got nice and melty. I love it when a healthy breakfast tastes like dessert!

So in this mix was 1/3 c of rolled oats, 1/3 skim milk, 1/3 c water, 1/3 c pumpkin + some raisins. I microwaved it for 3 minutes and then topped it off with some pecans, Erin Baker’s peanut butter granola (just bought it last night and couldn’t wait to try it!), and last but not least some semi-sweet chocolate chips. After taking a bite, I decided to add a bit more sweetness so I drizzled this with a tsp of maple syrup. Yum-o!

Oh, after blogging last night my stomach started growling (I guess I ate less than I thought) so I snacked on some Trader Joe’s chocolate covered edamames and went to bed.

The plan for today is to go shopping. I need to come up with some healthy snacks (or even lunch) to bring with me so I don’t blow my diet again. There also must be some exercise fit in to my schedule. It will most likely be a late workout.

I’ll be back later with the day’s update…