Except for a brownie there were other eats too, of course!

I got this in Montreal

… but I’m not a fan. It tastes like hemp seeds which I find bitter

Can you guess what I got as a gift in the mail yesterday? That’s some exciting stuff.

PS – I made it to bootcamp today and rocked it again. I’m back to my old self at the gym. I love intense workouts.

All right, I was actually going to go back to the office but I am beat so hopefully I can make up for it tomorrow. 2 more days of madness!!! The last night may be an all nighter, though. eek

So I wanted to talk today about something that I recently noticed about myself… I am a true Internet addict. Yes, many of us spend quite a bit of our time online (especially bloggers!) but for me the problem is that… once I pop, I can’t stop! Okay, maybe that exact expression is more fitting for chips, but seriously… if I allow myself “just 1 minute” to check the email, several hours pass by and its way past my bedtime. I check an email – that leads to a website, or twitter… and you know where that gets you. Twitter is not exactly productive. I’ve been trying to set a strict “bed time” but it’s not working. Anyone else is an Internet addict? I know at least a few of you are. Any tips of how to take it a little easier, or at least help with the whole “get in bed at a reasonable hour so you don’t look and feel like a zombie in the morning”?

You know what helps a bit in the morning though?

BREAKFAST!

How do you like that segway? Oh I crack myself up…

2 When Pigs Fly maple, pineapple, raisin with toasted sesame and ginger toasts with crunchy Barney Butter and a kiwi

Yum, yum, yum. Sweet and sour. Time for work!

MID-MORNING SNACKS

Shelling peas and 1 almond stuffed medjool date (unpictured – I’ll snap a few photos of my new date stuffing method for a future post).

WORKOUT

So Wednesday was my first workout in a week. Yikes! I took a super hard spin class and vowed to never take such a long break from working out again. It was due to a combination of going away for the weekend and work being super busy. Yesterday, I went back for more – this time for an abs + RIPPED class. Basically a crazy awesome bootcamp that I totally thought I couldn’t handle but somehow came out alive out of. The instructor was making fun of me a bit because I kept screwing up. She knows I haven’t been there in a few weeks and we both saw the pretty obvious consequences of such actions. She’s out on vacation next week, but I am going to ace these bootcamp classes again. I used to be one of the best in the class. I want to feel super strong again!!

LUNCH

We had no produce in the house, which meant a quick trip to the farmers market was in order. Here are my 2 favorite booths at the Prudential Center farmers market (open on Thursdays only).

Samira’s Homemade

The 3rd one down is my beloved baba ganoush. They sell it at Whole Foods but it’s cheaper at the farmers market since it cuts out the middle man. I stocked up!

Hehe, the guy that was working there wanted to be in the picture I think. Here you go, sir – your moment of fame.

Spring Brook Farm

This is definitely one of my favorites at our local farmers markets. I love that the girl that runs it is very knowledgeable about their farming practices and chicken raising (they sell their own eggs – from range free chickens that have their beaks for only $3.50/dozen – that’s cheaper than organic eggs at a super market!!).

I also love that their gorgeous produce is significantly cheaper than anywhere else. I think they actually watch their competition and try to undercut it a bit. Hey works for me. It’s still not cheap (i.e. I know they are well paid) but it’s more affordable compared to others for sure.

I bought SO much stuff there yesterday. It was pretty much a 1 stop shop.

… oh yeah, about lunch. I got a sandwich from the Iggy’s stand. They have the chewiest baguettes. LOVE.

Fresh mozzarella, organic tomatoes, organic basil with white vinegar dressing on buttered ficelle (I could do without the butter )

So fresh and delicious. It also held me off for hours, without making me feel super stuffed. Perfect!

DINNER

How could I forget? CEiMB meals are back! This week’s dish was penne with roasted tomatoes, garlic and white beans (recipe here). I got the tomatoes and basil at the farmers market for it so I felt it still utilized some local produce. I like really centering my meals around that.

This took quite a bit of time to make (not active time, just waiting for the tomatoes and garlic to roast) and I’m not sure that it was worth it. Maybe I overcrowded my tomatoes (I nearly double the amount based on reviews online) but they kind of came out stewed rather than roasted. This was a little on the bland side (again, maybe I should have doubled the garlic and oil too to compensate for the extra tomatoes?). We enjoyed it but I won’t be making it again.

Dessert: Russian apple cake made by my mother in law:

Adam and I each enjoyed a little slice with what was left of the greek yogurt froyo. I need to make another batch!!

Are you an Internet junkie like myself? Make me feel a little better – let me know

Any fun plans for the weekend? We have so much going on. It also happens to be our 2-year wedding anniversary this coming Monday and my dad’s birthday so there is lots to celebrate. See you tomorrow morning with a post.

So here we go, nice and simple today. Work is crazy but I still found time to take a minute and mindfully enjoy some very delicious foods.

BREAKFAST

Breakfast started with a little help from this weekend’s trip to the City Market in Burlington, VT. This is a community-owned grocery store, which means that many products from small local producers were available (for a few pictures of what it’s like inside the market, check out my previous post – you can click on the pictures to enlarge). I came in to find Liz Lovely cookies, which I discovered just days prior to our trip to Vermont through the Foodzie blog (which is very dangerous by the way, I’m a sucker for all the cute stories of small producers) and ended up clearing out their dessert bar. Ok, this may be a slight exaggeration but you better believe that the only thing that stopped me from doing exactly that is the expiration dates on the products. They were freshly baked and clearly should be consumed asap. One of the products that I just could not resist was this package of Butterfly Bakery raspberry apricot breakfast scones.

I absolutely adore apricots and these plump cookie-like scones (looks-wise) were a love at first sight. The first bite sealed the deal for me. Soft and buttery, with real raspberry and apricot chunks – this is the best scone I’ve ever tasted and I don’t think any future scone can stand a chance. These are perfect! I think I may freeze one and see how it preserves, because I’d love to stock up on a future trip to Burlington. And there will be a future trip. I’m obsessed.

I enjoyed the scone with coffee and an oikos (this batch is the best for some reason – so fluffy!). I didn’t end up eating the strawberries until dinner time. This was one good breakfast!

LUNCH

Lunch was pretty special too. I had a lunch date with Lauren and Shannon. It’s been forever since I’ve seen Lauren and I’m so glad that Shannon keeps popping in during lunch to my neck of the woods because that means we can see each other more often. Caffe Jaffa was our meeting place.

Look who I spotted already at the table… hi, Lauren! (hehe, I was trying to be sneaky but she noticed me)

Caffe Jaffa features American and Middle Eastern fare. I wanted nothing more than hummus. So that’s pretty much what I ordered – a hummus plate that came with a Greek side salad.

The lettuce was fresh, the feta and dressing (which I had on the side and just dipped my fork into) were both delicious. A great simple starter!

Mmm, hummus! Standard stuff (maybe even a tad too grainy for my liking). I ate about half with a warm pita.

The girls both ordered the hummus/baba ganoush/falafel platters (which is SO the way to go!) and I snuck a taste of Lauren’s baba ganoush and had one of Shannon’s falafel balls. Both were outstanding! The baba ganoush was very creamy, the falafel was flavorful and not at all greasy (although of course, it is still deep fried so one should enjoy such things in moderation).

This lunch was so fun! We chatted for a while, only stopping to take bites of our food. It was hard to go back to work, I’m not going to lie.

SNACKS

Before heading back to the office, Shannon and I did stop by the Copley farmers market. I bought more shelling peas. I think I have a problem (good thing they’re just nutritious peas).

Snack of champions!

DINNER

Since we’ve been out all weekend, there was not much in the fridge for groceries (I bought beets and greens at the farmers market – these would take too long to cook for a weeknight). I’m still impressed with how I pulled dinner off. And it was a good one, let me tell you!

About 3 weeks ago, Jen posted this recipe for salmon with strawberry and tomato salsa that I’ve been dreaming of ever since. The only problem is – wild salmon is expensive. I was waiting for it to go on sale but the day never came. Strawberries are only going to be in season for a few weeks and I happened to have some amazingly sweet ones from Quebec on hand. We also had half a container of grape tomatoes in the veggie drawer in the fridge and wild salmon burgers in the freezer. Hey, how about a salmon burger with strawberry and tomato salsa? Oh yeah!

The strawberry tomato salsa is the prefect balance of sweet and savory with balsamic vinegar’s acidity balanced out by the smooth and creamy laughing cow cheese I topped the ww burger buns with and of course by the incredibly juicy wild salmon burger (the burgers were from Whole Foods by the way – I highly recommend them!). Adam and I couldn’t get enough of this – so unique and fresh. Summer fare with a twist. This recipe is definitely going on the favorites list!! Thank you, Jen, for the inspiration!

Dessert was another City Market purchase.

Think 7-layer bar but better. I ate 1/2 of the package and it took a lot of will power not to go back to the kitchen and finish the rest. The white and semi-sweet chocolate chunks worked beautifully with walnuts, almost short bread-like crust, and of course the toasted coconut. I’m stopping now because the kitchen is not that far away.

The little pleasures in life. I don’t hate this.

Have a great day! And say hello if you have a second to spare. I was feeling a bit abandoned earlier but something tells me these yummies will bring you back.

Yesterday was another busy day as I was trying to tackle the rest of my to-do list, complete a longer run, and prep for a casual bbq. Adam was a HUGE help. I gave him a grocery list with like 50 items on it (some kind of obscure) and he bought everything but one (which I was fine without at the end of the day). Awesome! I love grocery shopping but sometimes a little help in that dept helps!

My long run was kind of bluh. It was HOT out by the time I got out (almost at noon) and I took lots of water breaks and gave up kind of early. I think I covered 8 miles (maybe a bit more) but maybe ran 6.5 of them and not all in a row. Oh well, hopefully there will be better runs this week!

My breakfast/pre-workout meal:

FFL english muffin with BB, strawberry rhubarb jam and 1/2 banana + coffee

Sorry for the terrible photo. I wasn’t even going to take a picture because you’ve seen it a million times, but then I took a quick one just in case. haha

I ended up kind of grazing for the rest of the day, so let’s call the eats below snacks, lunch and dinner.

Shrimp, mango & avocado ceviche in mini fillo shells. I think I’m going to submit this recipe to the phyllo contest. It turned out delicious after a few tweaks.

I munched on an orange and some cottage cheese while prepping these babies (unpictured).

Then the boys brought over some chips and salsa to munch on during the Celtics game. OMG, this black bean is like crack. So spicy and flavorful. I wanted to eat a whole jar with a spoon and call it dinner.

Let’s see the label a little closer. You guys need to find it asap!! I added it to my grocery list right away.

I did eat an actual meal eventually – Applegate Farms grass-fed organic hot dog & sauerkraut + grilled veggies

Did I mention how much I love grilled veggies? I think I did.

Dessert: bake-off test recipe #1 – break-up bars (recipe here)

I tried these  bars for the first time at the cookie swap party in January and they were definitely a favorite. I omitted the toffee (couldn’t find it + they are rich enough without it) but otherwise followed the recipe closely.

I’ve never baked with so much butter (more than a whole box was used for this batch) but man – these truly are incredible!! They took a while to set (I suggest throwing them in the freezer as the last step) but the wait was well worth it. So rich and decadent. I cut them into 64 little two-bite pieces and I think they can be enjoyed in such moderation guilt free (I had one of the bars pictured).

Shortbread + caramel + fudge = sounds like a winning recipe to me!!! I’ll keep on testing though, just in case

My birthday is this Saturday so I’m calling this my birthday week. I’m actually excited for it. See you later!

Before I found out that nobody was coming, I made myself an egg, cheese & bacon for BREAKFAST. Since our pans are all packed up, I microwaved the bacon for 40 seconds, then 1 egg + 1 egg white for 1 minute, topped them with a slice of American cheese (another 10 seconds) and plopped them on a toasted FFL english muffin. This reminded me of the breakfast sammies you get at Dunkin Donuts – I guess because they microwave all the fillings as well. Not great but will do in a pinch. The hearty english muffin was very satisfying.

[343 calories]

Then we were off to pick a granite slab for our counters…

Granite, granite everywhere!

We still couldn’t make a choice. Nothing was perfect

LUNCH

After hours of granite related activities, Adam and I were both starving. The Cheesecake Factory was an easy way to get some fuel in us so we could keep on going. I do NOT trust their menu (see this very old post with a link to their nutritional info) so I always order the same exact thing when I’m there – the Weight Management Asian chicken salad – grilled chicken, romaine, snow peas, carrots, bean sprouts, crispy noodles, almonds and sesame seeds, served with a low-cal sesame soy dressing. Despite the embarrassing name, it is actually delicious and compared to its peers – relatively harmless (especially if you don’t eat the whole thing).

The salad was GIGANTIC. I asked Adam to take a picture of me just so you could see that it was wider than I am!!!

I ate maybe half of it (maybe less) + a little slice of their honey wheat bread (no butter).

[1/2 salad + slice of bread ~ 331 calories] Adam got a cashew chicken dish that we later found out was 1,800 calories. See why I always stick to the same exact thing?!!

On the way to the kitchen faucet store (isn’t our life just so exciting?!) I munched on this Healthy and Sane trail mix. It was my chocolate fix for the moment.

[200 calories]

And then we decided to stop by the Whole Foods in Dedham to stock up on some groceries.

OMG, I was in heaven!!!!! This is the nicest WF I’ve seen outside of Austin. It’s giant, gorgeous and has so many specialty sections – like a bulk salt/spice section with salts from different parts of the world and these ones…

… a local products/specials aisle!

… a lunch box food aisle!

This was perfect for picking up some individual packaged baked goods. Hopefully it helps with portion control in the office and will prevent trips to the vending machine for Hershey bars (eww).

DINNER was leftover olive pizza and a few cookies from my new WF loot. I’m in love already

[50 calories]

Only 30 calories/macaroon and they are amazing!! They also are made with 6 simple ingredients (one of which is filtered water!). Could these be my new-found secret to staying slim while enjoying baked goods? I think these may just do the trick!

Total calories consumed: ~1650

What healthy foods have you recently found that you are super excited about?

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

My father in law helped Adam put it in our shower – it took literally minutes! Just unscrew the old shower head and screw this baby in. Done! Now you can be more eco-friendly!

I liked that the shower head could be hand-held as well as secured on its base. It’s very helpful for days I don’t want to get my hair wet (man, I’m such a girl sometimes! ). There are also a few different settings, so you can change the type of water flow you prefer. All of them were much weaker than our previous shower head, but that’s to be expected. Overall, there is still sufficient pressure to get a good shower so I’d definitely recommend it. Let’s save the world one shower at a time

Since we’re talking about being green and all, I thought I’d share some other green products that I like to use. Of course there is the eco-friendly reusable SIGG water bottle. I use this baby at the gym.

We also use energy-saving light bulbs. They cost more money but last a lot longer. Definitely worth it!

Our house is full of green cleaning products. We still have a few “regular” ones, but I replace them with their eco-friendly counterparts as they get used.

• All natural citrus air freshener
• CitraDish dishwasher gel in fresh grapefruit
• Citrus Magic 100% natural odor eliminating citrus air freshener – LOVE this!! It really smells like oranges in our bathroom
• Seventh Generations natural dish liquid
• Ecover cream scrub
• Ecover toilet bowl cleaner
• Green Works natural all-purpose cleaner

If you need some convincing about why green products are the way to go, watch this hilarious video! Seriously, watch it (it gets good after 16 seconds)!!

And finally my make-up and beauty products. This has been the hardest thing for me to adopt since I have so many favorites from days I couldn’t care less about this kind of stuff. I’m doing my best about replacing as many of them as I can but this is one area where I think it will take a lot longer for me to change. I’ve been using the Skin Deep database to determine which products are safe and which ones should be avoided. I hope one day they are able to have even more products tested!  Here are a few of my new purchases and my thoughts on them:

• Pure & Basic liquid hand soap – a great liquid soap!
• Korres Sugar crystal cream (face moisturizer) – rated 1 on Skin Deep (0-2 = low hazard; 7-10 = high hazard). I’m not in love with it yet. It has light texture but I’m not sure it provides my skin with sufficient moisture. I may keep looking.
• Meadowlake Farm About Face (face moisturizer) – rated 0 on Skin Deep; ingredients list sounds almost like a recipe (include raw honey, EVOO, mango butter, etc.) – that’s awesome. This is a very heavy cream. I’d like to find a nice balance between these 2.
• L’Oreal double extend mascara – rated 5 (I think it used to be rated lower). I bought it because of a lower rating than some other ones I’ve seen but it’s not great! Looking through the database right now, I can find a few others rated at least 4.

So clearly I still have a long way to go on the green cosmetics front. Now let’s get to our pearly whites… Waterpik would like to send one lucky Healthy and Sane reader a Waterpik sensonic professional toothbrush!!

Here is how to enter the Waterpik toothbrush giveaway:

1) Leave a comment on this post! I would especially like to hear about green products you love

2) If you have a blog, let others know about the giveaway and link back to this post.  If you don’t have a blog, tell someone about this giveaway and let me know that you’ve done so (after they enter the giveaway by commenting). *This earns you 2 bonus points*

3) If you have a blog, add Healthy and Sane to your blogroll (if I’m already on your blogroll, let me know – it counts!).  If you don’t, shoot me an email and give me some feedback on my blog. *This also earns you 2 bonus points*

The giveaway will run for a week through 5pm EST on December 9. I will announce the winner that night. Good luck!

THE RUN

This morning at the last minute, Molly and I decided to go for a quick run. I have to admit I was a bit apprehensive about how it was all going to go down. I pretty much run once a week now, and it shows… my stamina has really decreased. It was a beautiful day and we decided to just start running and see where that goes… it could even end up with just being a coffee date if the run wasn’t really happening. I met Molly about 1.5 miles into my run and I was already feeling it. I told her how silly it was for me to assume that I could just do 7-8 miles, just like that. I no longer run like I did while training for the half marathon, so I shouldn’t expect to be able to run decent distances just because I the number sounded good to me that day. So off we went, and somehow we both really got into it. Every time we had a chance to turn around, we just kept going! I’m going to fast forward to the end, I ran 9.5 miles today, averaging 9:48 minute miles (with the last 1.5 at an 8 minute mile pace… I was flying)!!!!! In fact, I could even keep going, I just decided it was time to get home. Oh, I also drank 18 oz of water, while running. I’m very proud of this too. This run was just amazing for my self confidence, on every level. I was seriously on cloud nine for the rest of the day and felt like a rock star!! Molly, you rock… and I kind of rock too

PRE-RUN SNACK/BREAKFAST

The usual: ww toast with Barney Butter + 1/2 banana

LUNCH

Lunch was crazy awesome… see it says so on my recipe so it must be true! Wow, I’m a dork… moving on!

I followed Meghann’s recipe for chickpea parmesan burgers, plopped it on a FFL english muffin and voila – an incredible (and filling!) lunch! Some carrot sticks on the side were the perfect sub for fries.

This recipe was super easy, and was seriously amazing. You have to make it asap!!!

And then it was time to enjoy this gorgeous day with my husband…..

I enjoyed a bite of this chocolate sample from Hotel Chocolat

And a delicious pumpkin spice chai with skim milk (no sweetener) from Tealuxe (my favorite tea spot!). Look at the frothy milk… mmm

Having my camera with me at all times comes in handy. This is our street… isn’t it cute?

A juicy apple tied me over until dinner…

DINNER

Shannon brought this amazing roasted red pepper dip to our housewarming party that was camera shy. The dip is slightly spicy and tangy (Shannon added some light cream cheese to cut the spice down) and is absolutely amazing scooped up with crackers, in sandwiches as a spread, and over pasta like in tonight’s dinner (the recipe for the dip can be found here).

Happy husband (candid shot)… I hope you don’t mind, Adam!

My portion: 2 oz whole wheat pasta with 1 chicken sausage, grape tomatoes, baby spinach and roasted red pepper sauce. This was so satisfying, perfectly balanced and absolutely delicious!

PS – This was yesterday’s lunch: 2 ww slider rolls with leftover grilled fish, roasted red pepper sauce and laughing cow cheese. Amazing!!

This sauce is so versatile. I highly recommend it! Thanks, Shannon, for bringing it over. Adam and I are in love with it

I’m off to a few bars to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Happy birthday, Emily!!!

How is your weekend going?

Ok, so here is where I need your help. We chose to go to Austin and San Antonio because we’ve never been and it’s going to be warm (and it’s relatively cheap). The problem is – we know nothing about these 2 cities!! What are you supposed to do there? Are there any amazing restaurants that just can’t be missed? I already know we’re going to the largest Whole Foods in the country – that, in my view, cannot be missed! Help!

Thank you all for your comments on my previous post about making exercise a priority. I woke up this morning with a food hangover and just wanted to stay in my pj’s and eat all day. The food hangover/stomachache continued through the morning, and I almost skipped the gym and went to the Paradise Bakery instead Do you ever get in this kind of rut when you skip a workout and eat too much, and all of a sudden that’s all that you want to keep doing? This happens to me, and it’s not because I like it – the opposite actually. I feel gross and I guess I feel continuing this seems appropriate. So I almost chose to continue the mad cycle. Instead I remembered my own words (and your comments) and made sure to make it on time to a crazy hardcore abs + bootcamp class. Ask, Coco, we were both dying in the class… in a good way I loved every minute of it and was just glowing for the rest of the afternoon! I love you, exercise!!

BREAKFAST

Banana oats with raisins and trail mix (cranberries, white choc chips, almonds and pecans)

MID-MORNING SNACK

100 calorie pack of almonds and walnuts

This is my new find. It’s really perfect for me because um, apparently someone (hint: me ) has been eating more than 100 calories’ worth of nuts lately. Yeah, portion control is good!

LUNCH

Turkey, avocado and fresh mozzarella on whole wheat toast + snap peas and grapes. Yum!

SNACKS

A low fat rocky road cookie I received in a package today from 24carrot. Thank you!!!

This cookie is GIANT… I really can’t believe it’s only 170 calories. No really, I think they are lying on that nutritional label!

The cookie got damaged in the mail and was very crumbly, but the crumbles were SO good! It was like a brownie (yes, a healthy brownie but a yummy one) with lots of nuts and mini marshmallows. I loved the nuts. I’d buy this cookie for sure if I could trust those nutritionals. 24carrot sent me 3 other cookies, all the same size and from the same company (I think), and 2 of them said they were 2 servings and 2 said they were 1 serving – and all were roughly the same amount of calories/serving. Hmm. If it is indeed only 170 cals, this is possibly my new favorite healthy dessert! Edited to add: I looked at the other 2 cookies and they’re full fat, which would explain the discrepancy. I think I need to invest in a box of these babies

Another new find – Smart Food chocolate cookie caramel pecan popcorn clusters

These were quite delicious. If you love sweet popcorn, you will love these… and the ingredients are 100% natural. Excellent. I’d still pick a baked good (or the above cookie) for a snack any day, but this is a great way to satisfy your sweet tooth without consuming a lot of calories (this bag was 130).

DINNER

I left early today (6:45 pm!) which meant I could make dinner at home! Whoa, that’s a new concept these days. This Mediterranean inspired wrap pizza ended up being the highlight of today’s eats (except for the cookie… that was good too… ok, a tie it is)! This is a whole wheat tortilla with 2T sabra hummus, lite shredded cheese, roasted red peppers, goat cheese and zaatar. All ingredients except for zaatar are from TJ’s. Toast the wrap for a bit before adding the toppings, then toast the rest until it’s at your preferred level of crispiness. Voila!

Made me and my belly beyond happy

Perfectly crispy… and disappearing fast

Great eats today! Oh I just remembered, I’m going on vacation… I’m going on vacation!!!! If you’ve been or live in Austin or San Antonio, don’t be shy, comment here and share with us the cities’ gems!

V8 soup giveaway here.

I woke up bright and early at 6:45 am so I could make a bagel sandwich for breakfast. It’s kind of fun having these at home because I’m trying to use them in “creative ways.” Ok, an egg and cheese sandwich is not creative but I’ve had three bagels so far and with different fillings, so that’s what I mean. Anyways, this was still not early enough and I ran out of time. I remembered Tina making her egg in the microwave a few times, so I gave it a go. I sprayed a bowl with some Pam spray, cracked an egg and microwave this baby for 1 minute. It was perfect! The sandwich came together very fast so I had time to scarf it down Egg, american cheese, 1.5 slices of Oscar Mayer microwave-ready bacon on a homemade bagel – breakfast of champions!

Soo much cheese, yum! Once again, this bagel kept me full for the longest time (it’s weird because the big Panera ones don’t). I was not hungry for over 4 hours. That’s just unheard of! I finally ate a snack because I was going to the gym during lunch and didn’t want to crash there. My first snack was quite simple. Because I didn’t have any fruit or veggies for breakfast, I was craving the apple I brought in just in case. So that’s what I had… my apple+ a string cheese.

After eating this snack all of a sudden my hunger woke up. All of a sudden I was starving and the only thing that prevented me from digging into my lunch is the fact that I knew this could only end 2 ways: 1) I would skip the gym because now I was too full or 2) I would go to the gym and feel sick there. So yeah, I resisted the urge to keep eating and went to the Group Power class at 12:30. Btw, I ended up doing a quick 30 minute elliptical workout last night after blogging. It wasn’t anything crazy, but the machine said I burnt 475 Calories. It’s probably an overestimatation, but it was still a bunch. And I watched another episode of Sopranos I’m getting addicted to this show, but I only watch it when I’m at the gym, so this helps me get there…

So of course I could not wait to get back to my desk after my workout. Lunch was calling my name, quite loudly actually.

The stars of the show were wheat berries. I made a bunch a week and a half ago, and used it very sparingly in some of my yogurts and over salads. I decided it was time to use this stuff up before they go bad, so I remembered Ellie Krieger’s wheat berry salad. I only made one serving without celery (eww) and scallions (double eww!) and no parsley, but then I bulked it up with some mixed greens and tomatoes. It was delicious! I definitely loved the chew of the wheat berries! I have a few spoonfulls left – I can use it up tomorrow over yogurt.

My hunger never really stopped since that first snack. I ate lunch at 2pm, then a second snack at 3pm (pumpkin choc chip cookie with tea):

And then a 3rd snack at 4pm. I ate one of Ellie Krieger’s energy bars but didn’t snap a photo. I made these bars a while ago and froze most of them. I grabbed one out of the freezer this morning. You’ll see more of them in the future… They are really delicious!

Was I satisfied after that? Nope! But I don’t like eating more than 3 snacks a day (the 3rd one is usually after dinner but I had to listen to my body) so I waited patiently until 5:30 when I left work to go to my massage!

OMG, it was sooo good! I got the hot stone massage at G2O. This was my first hot stone massage and it was amazing! Super relaxing and just what I needed. G2O is my favorite spa in Boston and every time I get a massage there I swear that next time I’ll get the longer one. Of course by the time I book the next one, I don’t want to spend that much money, and the cycle continues. But next time, I swear, I’m getting a longer one

They have a really cute waiting area there with some water, coffee and tea and cookies and trailmix. After my massage I was in such a zen mood and the girl said I could relax there and grab some snacks. I did! I had 2 handfulls of the tropical trail mix then had. I don’t know how much it was… I’m guessing 1/4 cup (no pic, sorry, I didn’t stash the camera in the robe). It was awesome and I had to really talk myself out of eating the whole container, jk I wouldn’t do that, but not going back there for a third handful (eek!) definitely took some will power (and by the way if anyone is counting -that’s 4-5 snacks today). I knew I had to get home asap to eat dinner!

I planned ahead so dinner once again was ready within minutes. Last night I cooked up Ellie Krieger’s better burgers with green olives (ok, it’s kind of weird that I featured 3 Ellie Krieger’s recipes in one post! I swear I use other cookbooks for recipes). So when I got home I just warmed it up in a microwave, toasted an Eizekel english muffin, added the rest of the toppings and gobbled it up.

The white stuff is a Laughing cow wedge. I also added some pickles midway. Although it looked and smelled good, the burger was nothing special. I couldn’t really taste the olives so it was quite bland. It was healthy and filling, though And for dessert there was a bit of chocolate…

I am officially stuffed and happy. I’m also super tired. I’ve been going to bed late and waking up early lately, so I think this finally caught up to me.

Thank you all the new readers for 1) reading and 2) commenting. I feel loved Good night!