Author Archives: Emily

We’re All Winners

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I’ve had such an exciting assortment of eats this afternoon!  And the husband came home earlier than usual and watched the newest Bones episode with me!  It’s been a good day all around 🙂

And I have some good news for some lucky giveaway winners –

Holly, Emily, Ashley, and Brandi; send me your info please and congrats.

This morning I finished off the rest of my coffee, chilled with skim.

I’d like to think it was the extra caffeine that gave me the energy to power through the business calls I had to make.  Or maybe it was the thought of my thrilling lunch.

Nom, nom, nom, nom 😀

If I had breakfast with Tina I did lunch with Janetha!  1/2 cup 1% cottage cheese, 1/4 cup Cedar’s Chick Pea Salad, and a few shakes Kernel Seasons Ranch.

This was a super tasty combo, thanks for the idea Janetha!

Next I had one of my favorite combos.

2/3 of a Crispin apple with sun butter.

And if that was one of the favorites this next combo is my absolute all time favorite.

Cedar’s pita chips with Garlic and Chive Feta Spread.  Words cannot describe how much I love this!

Post lunch my sweet tooth hit me hard.  I was dying to run across the street and get a cookie but somehow I resisted.  At 150 calories this Dannon Caramel yogurt was a much more sensible choice.

And topped with 1.5t each toasted walnuts and cinnamon chips it was pretty darn delicious.

The plan this evening is gym, reading (magazines for sure but hopefully some homework too), and a homemade dinner.  See you later!

What has been the most exciting part of your Friday?

FEST

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This post is a bonus of sorts (not related to any meal) and will be more introspective than most.

When I quit my life as a teacher to persue a new career I wasn’t worried about feeling aimless, even though I knew our move to Buffalo meant I couldn’t start a program this year.  My identity isn’t tied to my job, I’ve got a lot to be proud of – my motivation, my organizational skills, my ripped abs, my awesome cooking…..  Let’s check in with that shall we –

  • I’m behind on the reading for both of my classes.  I had to miss Chem on Tuesday and class last night had me in tears because I was so confused.  This is especially pathetic because I chose to take Anthropology; I’m taking it for fun not to fulfill a prerequisite.
  • I haven’t cooked a real meal in basically weeks.  It seems like everything we eat is packaged (and beige!) and I feel like a terrible wife.  Plus I basically stopped eating fruits and vegetables which is certainly not good for my health.
  • I’m feel exhausted all of the time.  I know feeling stressed and run down is a normal thing, but I am an unemployed part-time student, there is no reason I shouldn’t be well-rested!  Adam and I both just get so sucked in to doing things late at night.  The later we stay up, the later I sleep in (because, you know, I have nowhere to go) and then the cycle continues.
  • My abs are no longer ripped, in fact what is the polar opposite of ripped?  I’m surprised no one has asked me if I’m preggers yet.  Nevermind the fact that I’m dangerously close to not being able to button most of my jeans.  When I had an insane life in Brooklyn I could deal with weight gain as a trade-off for the work I was doing but I’ve gained more weight since we moved to Buffalo than I did in the two years in Brooklyn.
  • I am running a half marathon in 37 days and I have not started to train at all.  Am I even going to be able to finish my race?  And if I do it will feel a lot less anti-climatic if I don’t put in any work first.  The plan was to get a 2nd tattoo to mark the memory but I’m not sure I want to any more.

So, I’m just going to whine about it?  NO!  It feels like everything in my life is spinning out of control, but “everything” covers a lot of ground, so I made four manageable goals –

  1. Food – cook at least three meals a week.  And eat more (any?) fruits and veggies.
  2. Exercise – for the next 37days you can’t tell me I don’t have 30minutes a day to devote to exercise.  It’s training time, baby!  (Don’t forget, you can track my training here)
  3. Sleep – I’m kind of a night owl, but even if I ultimately decide I want to keep my late night ways, for the next month I need to shift into waking up earlier.  My goal is 7-8hours a night, 10 or 11 bedtime.
  4. Time management – even if I add in an earlier bedtime and daily workout I still have time to study.  I get nothing done at home so I think I might take the monetary hit and start heading to the coffee shop for study time more often.

I’m going to call this “life improvement movement” FEST – Food, Exercise, Sleep, Time management.  I love how Susan of The Great Balance Act does goal check-ins on her blog and I think I’ll do the same.  Since all/any of these changes will be tricky for me I’m planning on giving a quick update at the end of each day.  Wish me luck!

What goals would you like start working on?  I would love it if you would tell me your goals/progress.

Carrot Cake n’ Coffee

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It’s good to be back, and it’s a Friday!  My tummy troubles seem to be better which is always a good thing.

Breakfast this morning had me thinking of Tina.  Perhaps because it involved carrots n’ cake? 🙂  I followed this Cooking Light recipe for carrot cake pancakes.

A winner!  I halved the recipe, so some of the spices were eyeballed, and skipped the canola oil, but they came out perfectly.  I loved the spice flavor and I though the consistency was great.

The entire breakfast felt pretty darn fancy.

1 serving of carrot cake pancakes, topped with Smart Balance Light and a drizzle of maple syrup (that’s a side plate btw).

A mineola with the last of the blueberries.

And french pressed chocolate peppermint coffee with tons of skim milk.

I really want to start doing more homemade coffee, this really rounded out the meal. 

Once the kitchen is all cleaned up – and there’s not much to do because I clean as I cook – I’m going to settle in with some reading.

Don’t forget, today’s the last day to enter my giveaway.

Chum/Chang

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Chum

I feel like shark bait!  Apparently I have some sort of stomach bug, because my tummy still hurts.  It’s gotten much better though, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll be right as rain by tomorrow.  I haven’t been posting because my eats have been rather boring and bland.  And there’s the small matter of me losing my camera for a day but let’s go with the stomach theory not the forgetful one.  On the plus side – I think my yogurt storage method was fine, so that’s a good thing!

Chang

I didn’t actually know who Alexa Chung was before reading this article (hey, I don’t have cable!) but apparently people worry that she’s too skinny.  Eating disorders are a serious disease that need to be treated with compassion and understanding by the media.  That said, irreverent humor is often the best kind of humor.

Check out the link to the commercial she did with Bing and let me know what you think

Personally, I think this ad was hilarious.  I have a big issue with the media frenzy over celebrity weight and I like the tongue in cheek way Chang pokes fun at it.  I think the societal  focus on stars who are “too skinny” can a be factor in eating disorders.  While the articles often try for a sympathetic tone (look at this poor sick girl) the take-away message for many adolescent girls is look at how much attention we’re giving her for losing weight.

What do you think?  Did you find the commercial funny or offensive?

Whine and Cheese

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This was not my most sucessful Tuesday, I’ll keep this quick because I’m in a pretty bad mood.

Sooooooooo, my tasty oats this morning?  Two issues – 1. They apparently had no staying power, I was starving by 10am.  2. The 1/3 of yogurt is from the same container as last week’s 1/3 a cup in overnight oats.  It was a single serving cup of Dannon, which I placed inside a tupperware after I opened it.  I wondered about that decision this morning, but I figured it would all be ok.  Yeah, so not ok!  My stomach hurt so bad I thought I was going to die and I ended up going home after my first class.  Boo!

Between starving and sick I did squeeze in lunch at the school cafeteria.

It was a pretty lame lunch, sometimes food court situations are really overwhelming for me.  The excess of choices tend to induce mini panic attacks and short of that I choose quickly, randomly, and poorly.  Thus a sandwich that was neither healthy nor what I was craving.

Chicken salad on a spinach wrap with shredded lettuce, jalopenos, black olives, and blue cheese dressing.  I also had a side of pickles,

and some so-so chips I only ate due to extreme hunger.

Post lunch but before class I also grabbed a tall white hot chocolate.

In retrospect that wasn’t the best choice; I had it made with skim instead of whole milk but it was still too much sugar.  Which doesn’t mean that once I was curled up wimpering on the couch I didn’t eat this brownie.  😉

Or two servings of these guys, straight from the bag, not a good idea.

Given that chips are not that healthy of an appetizer choice I tried to keep dinner light.

The other half of my minneola and a kiwi bowl,

leftovers of the tastiest collards on earth,

mini pita with melted blue brie.

I promise to be in a better mood tomorrow!  But not a morning mood, I have my first chem lab tomorrow and it start at 8am, I clearly won’t be blogging until lunch.  Night.

Don’t forget to enter my giveaway!

Chocolate Oats

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Ever since my lackluster bowl a week or so ago I’ve been dreaming of this breakfast –

Chocolate Overnight Oats!  Last night I combined 1/3 cup Skim Plus Chocolate Milk with 1/3 cup oats.  This morning I added in 1/3 cup plain fat free yogurt and 1/3 cup blueberries.  Finally, I added a tablespoon each toasted walnuts and cinnamon chips.

Too awesome!  This bowl made me happy x 10.

We almost never buy chocolate milk but Skim Plus tastes amazing and is a pretty healthy treat.

Today is going to be more busy than awesome.  I’ve got foot surgery follow-up at 10:10 and since it’s near school I’m going to eat lunch on campus.  Then I have class from 2 – 6:30 (there’s a two hour break in there but I packed work) before I come home and go to the gym.

P.S. Don’t forget to enter my Cedar’s giveaway.

Dinner

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I hope you entered my giveaway, because I’m be fawning over Cedar’s some more in this post!  Speaking of giveaways, here’s a healthy one.  I was super excited about this dinner, I’ve been planning my Mediterranean Fest for a week!

All of the individual components were fabulous, and they melded together perfectly.

Mini whole wheat pita from Wegmans.  A serving size was 2 for 110 calories but one was more than enough.  I loved how doughy these were.

Collards.  The absolute star of the dish!

I steamed a 16oz bag of frozen collard greens then mixed it with 1/3 cup toasted walnuts,a drizzle of  maple syrup, and 3.5oz of chopped blue brie cheese.  The flavors went together so perfectly, I was in heaven with every bite!  The cheese was from Saga, something I’ve wanted to try forever and I’m glad I did.

Falafel.

I used half of the box, mixed with H2O, but decided to ignore the package directions and bake instead of fry.  After 25minutes in a 350* oven they were perfect.  Tasty as they were, the falafels were a bit dense, I ended up only eating 2 of 3.

Cedar’s Garlic Tzatzika for dipping.

Everything went together so well, the mix of textures and tastes was kind of a dinner thrill.  Plus, after all the junk I ate this weekend it feels really good to eat something good.

After dinner it was time for my final to do: the gym.  37minutes on the treadmill; it was good to add to my training log.

What is your favorite kind of cheese?  I tie between blue and brie so the Saga blend was perfection for me!

P.S. Eating Bird Food is also doing a giveaway.

Great Giveaway

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Having a husband in medical school means that plans often get changed around.  It’s annoying, but considering that my only “job” right now is housewife I try to just roll with it.  Which is why I moved my gym trip to 9 this evening.  I will be going for certain, you can count on seeing a training update!

I did NOT, however, feel like moving my afternoon evening snack around!  Since 95% of my to-do’s are complete (the biggie was transferring my i-tunes files and I could not be happier that’s finished!) I gave myself 30minutes or so to read some magazines while I had a tasty snack.

Baked Pita Chips with Garlic and Artichoke Salsa; 1 serving of each; holy yum!

Now that you guys have heard me rave about Cedar’s products for 2+ weeks, I’m giving you a chance to do some raving of your own! 

Cedar’s sent me 12 free product coupons and I will be choosing 4 lucky readers to share my wealth.

  1. giveaway ends this Friday (1/29) at noon – Pacific time for my West Coast readers
  2. for a chance to win: leave a comment on this post telling me your favorite Mediterranean dish
  3. for a 2nd/3rd entry: link back to this post and/or tweet back and leave me a comment telling me you’ve done so