Tag Archives: chalk

Thank Goodness It’s Tuesday

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The title’s not sarcastic, we have a difficult assignment due this Thursday and I’m glad to still have a day standing between me and it!

My shift at work went well yesterday but when I got out at 9 I was just too tired to photograph, or blog, or think.  We do not do Daylight Saving Time where I grew up and my body still hasn’t quite gotten used to it.  Every year I am so exhausted for the weeks immediately following the time changes.

I needed a little extra help this morning too.

The vanilla flavored Doubleshot was very tasty.  I’d drink it for flavor alone if it weren’t for all the caffeine.

Solid food was good too.

I had a Siggi’s Strawberry topped with two sliced yellow plucots and a drizzle of maple syrup.

The yellow plucots were good but I think I prefer the dapple variety.  These were more tart.

When I walked to campus for stats this morning I was almost too hot in my winter coat.  And I definitely had to fan myself when I saw my score on the first exam –

Woot!

Clinic was good too.  I had my first teenage patient (I’ve been with adults and infants previously) and it was a different sort of interviewing experience.  We also met as a group for some interesting mini-discussions on anorexia nervosa and cystic fibrosis.

I was hungry and short on time after clinic so I made myself an Annie Chun’s Korean Sweet Chili Noodle Bowl.

I added a big handful of shredded carrots on top for veg.

It was good, and I very much liked the amount of heat to the sauce, but desperately in need of a crunch factor.  I have a few other flavors that I purchased on sale and I might stock up on peanuts to top them with.

Dinner was actually a blogger event.  T.G.I.Friday’s invited a bunch of local bloggers to try out their new menu.

The plates were portioned for sharing (and the light was pretty bad) so the media contact actually requested that we not take any food photographs.  Instead I’ll do a recap of what I thought of the dishes I tried when she sends me press info/high-res photos.  I will say for now that I was surprised and impressed.  It felt very strange to not be photographing though!

I brought my friend Kim with me and we ate ’til we were stuffed and a had a lot of fun.  It was nice getting to meet some of the other local bloggers.

I came home from the event planning on working but instead I’m hurrying to bed.  Adam baked up a ton of food to pack for his lunches this week (eggplant, zucchini, tomatillos, mushrooms, rice, and a bunch of seasonings and sauces) and the apartment is permeated with a smell that’s making me ill.  It actually smells delicious, but the sensory overload has given me nausea and a headache.  Tomorrow will be insanely busy but hopefully oder-free!

See If They’ve Got Any Chocolate Bananas, Foster

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Did everyone have a fun Friday?  I slept through most of mine, hence the Saturday recap post.

I woke up a little bit late(r than desired) yesterday so I headed to straight to the gym.  CT10k 1.3 called for 10 sets of 2 minutes running, 3 minutes walking.  50 minutes and 3.9 miles.  My workout was great, but I cut the time a little too close.  I had to literally jog – ugg boots, purse, push-up bra and all – part of the way back to school to make it to class on time!

I’m glad I made it, we had a great guest lecturer; a local RD who is certified as a Diabetes Educator.  Once you’ve been an RD for couple of years there are all sorts of specialty certifications you can pursue.  I think one in weight loss counseling could be fun.

When the guest lecturer was gone, I managed to eat breakfast during some student presentations.  Leftovers for the win.

The Seven Layer Casserole just gets better and better!  I also had a Goya Soursop Nectar.

Soursop (aka guanabana) is my favorite fruit; it is too exciting that my Wegman’s recently expanded its Goya line.  A guy friend in class joked that I’ve been a Goya groupie lately, (this was only my 2nd item but I think they are memorable because they’re a little outside the norm for class snacking) but it’s the closest thing to what I grew up with.

I stayed at school for a bit to work after class to work in the Dietetics computer lab.  I have to complete a three-day diet analysis as part of my portfolio and I needed to use a program that is only available on the computers at school.  I think maybe my eats during Vegan Month are a little too obscure for the program though; I had to make my best guesses at product substitutes and the program told me that my average intake for the last three days was 978 kcal/day.  I don’t think so!

For lunch, I opened up this So Delicious Greek Style Plain Yogurt.

No.  Just no.  I knew it was a gamble when I bought it but I took the risk because I’ve adored everything else I’ve tried from So Delicious.  Sadly the yogurt was exactly as I’d feared – straight up chemical.  The texture wasn’t terrible but the taste was like licking a counter in chem lab.

Instead I ate the two plucots that were supposed to top my yogurt out of hand.

I almost shed a tear of happiness at the taste of these.  They were still a little bit too sour, but that means that plucot season is right around the corner.

For the rest of lunch I paced frantically waited patiently for my oven timer to ring.

Bananas Foster Bars!!!  If Seven Layer Casserole was #2, these bars are the #1 best thing from last year’s Vegan Month.  I ate three.

I’m not gonna lie and say that my stomach didn’t hurt, but I’m also not gonna lie and say it wasn’t totally worth it.

But since I ate ~700 calories worth of cookies I did keep dinner on the lighter side.  Or I was going to anyway.  The plan was soup, but apparently my hour-long nap – at noon, on the floor – wasn’t doing it because I fell into bed at 8:30 last night!  Yay catch-up sleep.

This morning Adam and I headed straight out on errands.  Probably not my best idea to skip breakfast when I slept through dinner, but I was a woman on a mission.  I got so hungry that I convinced myself that spending $3 on a Synergy Grape Chia Kombucha wasn’t a waste of money.

But it really wasn’t a waste of money because it was delicious!  I loved chewing through it and the flavor reminded me of a grape Laffy Taffy.  Adam and I shared it and even he was a fan by the end.

Our other share wasn’t quite as healthy.

Five Guys fries make my soul sing.  Seriously.  I’ve made a bigger effort this past week to eat less crap, but we’re doing a different challenge in March that necessitates shoveling in FGF now.

Lunch was healthy and tasty.

I love storing leftovers in tupperware because when you are combining you can shake things together to get a really good mix.  This time I shook barley, roasted broccoli, roasted butternut squash, and Wegman’s Thai Peanut Sauce.  Topped with a few cocktail peanuts.

Delicious.  We’ve been trying new things from the Co-op’s bulk bins lately and it’s been fun branching out.

I made myself a really delicious dinner.

But I only got to eat two bites.  All of the sudden, Webster – in the worst show of behavior I’ve ever seen from him – shoved his entire face into my bowl!  Hello, mess; goodbye, dinner.

[Updated Sunday Morning To Add]

The boys came over to play poker, he got even more crazy, and I got so irritated I ended up just going to bed.  So now I need to find a nice big breakfast.

Stupid dog.

Question of the day, from my post title – Name that movie!

What Do You Know About A Reduced Sodium Diet?

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Hello, hello!  We’ve officially hit the weekend, woot!

Breakfast, which was eaten during class, was all about the fruit group.

A baggie of purple grapes,

and a can of coconut water from Goya.

There were pieces of coconut floating around inside and it was too good.  Major props to Goya, because even without the pulp this was the best coconut water in terms of texture and taste that I’ve ever had!  Minus coconut water drunk straight from the coconut of course.

My morning was a little nerve-wracking because I had a class presentation, but at least since I don’t mind public speaking all I really had to worry about was knowing my stuff.  Just in case though, I rocked the Cameron from “House” look to make myself feel more confident.

It worked; everyone told us we did a great job!  Not to toot my own horn totally to toot my own horn, but when I was in the library after class another student came up and told me that our presentation was the best in-class presentation she’d ever seen.  Woot!

Our topic was the reduced sodium (2g) diet.  Our teacher played the patient and a fellow student and I had to give her the diet education.  I had a whole analogy about your viens being your pipes and your heart being your pump that I thought was pretty compelling (toot, toot).  I can’t share the entire handout that I made, but here are some of my tips that I thought you guys might be interested in –

When Can You Reduce Sodium On Your Own?

  • In the kitchen –
    • Experiment with new spices and herbs for extra flavor.  Don’t buy pre-made seasonings though as most contain sodium.
    • Make your own soup instead of buying canned.  If you do buy canned look for a low sodium variety and/or dilute each serving with water.
    • Replace canned vegetables with fresh or frozen varieties.
    • Replace soy sauce with balsamic vinegar.
    • Make your own microwavable entrees by making large batches of meals and freezing single portions in freezer-safe containers.
    • Use a homemade hummus in place of cheesy or cream-based sauces.
    • At the table –
      • Say goodbye to the salt shaker, sprinkle fresh lemon juice over chicken, fish, or vegetables instead.
      • Replace a glass of milk with water or unsweetened iced tea.
      • Replace condiments that are high in sodium with homemade salsa.
      • Top your salad with chunks of avocado instead of bacon bits.  While you’re at it, replace store-bought dressings with oil and vinegar.
      • Instead of a slice of cheese, spread a Tbsp of tahini (sesame paste) on your sandwich.
      • For crunch, snack on baby carrots instead of potato chips.
      • Sprinkle your popcorn with cinnamon or chili powder instead of salt.

After class I spent an agonizing hour in the library finding an article for an upcoming paper, then had to hurry home to make it to 1:30pm yoga.  I stopped at Subway for a quick lunch along the way.

I did some Googling in the library and everything on my veggie delight was confirmed to be vegan.  On roasted garlic bread – lettuce, tomato, green pepper, red onion, banana pepper, extra pickles, and sweet onion sauce.  All for $2.50, woot!

Plus a piece of dark chocolate.

Lunch was good, even when shoveled in in under 10 minutes.

And I made it to yoga on time.  60 minutes of hot yoga had me feeling good.  But it wasn’t my best practice, I definitely prefer the 90 minute class because it gives me time to really warm up.  Plus, running through each pose twice means I have double the chance of actually doing each pose!  My 30-day pass expires this weekend and I’m pretty devestated.

I’ve been hanging out instead of showering since I got home, but hopefully my partner in crime doesn’t mind that I’m smelly.

Do you pay attention to how much sodium you consume?

Nowhere To Dip My Crusts

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I’ve got my eye on a 6 am yoga class so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Adam’s got an early bedtime going tonight.  The chance of me actually making it to 6 am yoga is about 50%, but if I make it I’ll be 100% happy.

This morning’s bowl of oats did not hold me over; I think the banana helps with satiety more than I realize.  My stomach was growling within an hour!  I ended up serving myself a small scoop of leftovers.

Plus a few big bites straight from the container.  And a glass of chocolate milk.

1 cup of skim milk with 2 Tbsp of chocolate syrup, over ice.

When I was a kid I would always serve my milk, chocolate or otherwise, over ice.

I went to school early to get some stuff done in the library.  On my walk, I stopped at Ashker’s for a double espresso.

With milk (cream?) and sugar.

It was so thick.  Ashker’s has not served us wrong yet!

School went well, I had a meeting after class and set up a meeting before class, so if nothing else I was productive.  And I got my copy of the Dietetics Newsletter … with an article by ME in it.

It’s possible I talk about the banana’s jacket (aka peel).

It was super cool to see my name “in print.”  One of the things I want to do with my degree is get freelance jobs writing articles for health and wellness magazines.  Or have my own column some day!

It worked out very well that I left my car on campus, because I ended up having to run a few car-necessary errands on my way home.  While I was out and about I picked up a peanut butter swirl brownie to split with Adam.

My half –

It wasn’t very good.  Boo.  Ever since the Co-op stopped selling that candy bar I was obsessed with I’ve been disappointed with them.

I had a salad of Romaine lettuce, sliced cucumber, and thousand island dressing.

And dinner was pizza.

Buffalo chicken pizza.

And it was so dang good that I went back for a third slice later on!

When I put pizza on the meal plan I forgot that I would have nothing to dip my crusts in.  The horror!  For the next two weeks I’m going without diet soda.  The horror!  As an assignment for school, we had to choose an item that we regularly consume to stop eating for two weeks.  Since part of our career will involve counseling patients who may no longer be able to eat certain foods, our teacher wanted us to experience what it was like to give up a favorite.  I’ll be honest, if I had known what the assignment was beforehand I probably would have picked a different item!

Have you ever stopped eating a certain food?  Why’d you give it up?  How long did you go without / has it been since you’ve had it?

This will be the first time for me, other than our past 2-week to 1-month vegan challenges.  And speaking of which, we are doing another vegan challenge this February.  I’d love to have any of my omnivore readers join us!

I Wish I Was In Hawaii

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It’s been a good day!  You would barely know that I have three exams tomorrow …  😉

Our trip to the Buffalo Centre went well.  We couldn’t see much due to privacy concerns, but it was really interesting to see the menu selection system and learn a bit more about how appropriate intake for eating disorder patients is determined.  Among other things, the RD mentioned that most patients won’t gain weight unless they are taking in at least 2,000 calories a day.

I ate a late lunch (thanks mom!) while I looked at some notes.

A few pieces of sweet and sour chicken,

and veggies picked from a chicken dish.

I got a lot of work done this afternoon and I definitely have to give credit to my student partner –

Dinner was a shrimp roll.

Plus fruit as an apple with Justin’s Maple Walnut Butter.

And veggies in the tasty form of Hawaiian Inspired Greens.

Click here for a link to the recipe, it’s a good’un.

I ate my dinner way to early in the evening and ended up doing some (unneccessary) snacking as the night wore on.  Popcorn,

and a few pieces of Almond Rocca.

Think smart thoughts for me tomorrow?

Good Marital Advice

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First things first.

Q – Which has more caffeine (no looking it up!) a grande coffee from Starbucks or a Red Bull energy drink?

A – The Starbucks.  330 mg versus 80 mg.  (source)

Also, I have no photos of my mid-day meal.  Lunch was consumed via food lab samples and I didn’t have time to photograph.  The lack of pictures stinks, but the meal was gooood.  Today was the fat/fat substitute group’s lab and we made regular and reduced versions of ranch dressing, buffalo chicken dip, french toast, red velvet cupcakes, and grilled cheese sandwiches.  In total I consumed about 3-4 big bites of each.  The cupcakes were beyond nasty (both varieties) but the dip was ridiculous good and we all stood around taking bites long after we were done tasting!  Plus I ate several pieces of sourdough while I was slicing bread for the sandwiches.

I had dinner all planned out but the husband arrived home from the hospital at 6pm and confidently declared that we were going out.  A good wife never contradicts her husband.

We ended up at Thai Orchid and our meal was mind-blowing.  Good call, honey!

I took a few bites of Adam’s Tom Kha soup.

And several more bites of his Pad Thai.

But mostly I was focused on shoving this into my mouth as quickly as I could.

Pad Kee Mao; spicy stir-fried flat rice noodles in chili sauce with broccoli, egg, onion, green and red peppers, and fresh hot basil.

I ordered mine tofu/vegetarian and Thai spicy so it came with extra veggies and burned my face off.

Heaven.  I was dying with happiness with every bite I took.

Now we are going to catch up on “Modern Family” and stick some spoons into this –

Did you guess the answer to the caffeine question correctly?

What I Should Have Known

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Can we talk about my cortisol levels?  Because today was stress-full!  Not in an anything-serious-happening sort of way, more of an I’m-irritated-and-I-feel-my-heart-racing-please-let-me-go-have-a-nap way.

For irritating things #1, you need some background info.  Like “my classes start at 8am every day.”  Or “it takes me 3-5 minutes to drive to campus most days.”  And “the walk from the parking lot to my first class takes 10 minutes no matter how quickly you scurry.”  Got all that?  Because I woke up at 7:47.  Yeah.  I should have known that staying up late with Adam and eating cookies and big bowls of mac n cheese was not going to leave me well rested.  I ended up only being 3 minutes late to class though.  Extrapolate that and think about just how pretty I looked today.

Irritating thing #2 is that we don’t have our tests from last week back.  I’m not irritated with the teacher because I know time-consuming grading can be.  (Though I am irritated with another teacher because we took a test in that class a month ago and still don’t have it back!)  But it is irritating to have to keep obsessing over how I did.  I think one test went really well and the other went really, really poorly so for a multitude of reasons I’d like to have them back and be able to just move on!

Since I clearly didn’t pack any food and I had group meetings during all of our breaks, my first meal of the day was consumed at 3pm.  To keep myself from going crazy I bought a half-sweet pumpkin spice latte on my drive home.

And then I tucked into this –

That’s a leftover serving of mac ‘n cheese with chopped carrots and celery stirred in and Greek yogurt and Sriracha on top.

I went a bit heavy with the Sriracha, I should have known that my mouth would be on fire.  I ended up just stirring everything together.

This killed the cheesiness (favorite flavor 1) but the end product was very spicy and creamy (favorites 2 and 3).  I should have known that it’d be perfect.

Plans for the evening include –

  • school work (hopefully)
  • dinner (for sure)
  • stress reduction (any suggestions?)
  • a workout (please, please, please, Universe, give me the motivation to do this!)

Fun Fact Fridays Monday

Here are some of the things I hope I knew during my test last Friday –

  • Sugar alcohols, which are naturally found in some foods, are produced by reducing the carbonyl group of a sugar to a hydroxyl group.  They are used in gum because they are sweet but do not cause dental carries (cavities) and have less kilocalories than sugar because they are not absorbed as readily.
  • Corn syrup is produced by the hydrolysis (break down) of corn starch.  For high fructose corn syrup, they hydrolyse corn starch then use an isomerase to convert glucose to fructose (the sweetest monosaccharide).
  • professor’s opinion, backed by multiple peer-review studies – HFCS isn’t any worse (or different) than sugar.  The problem is that we are getting too many sweeteners (sugar, HFCS, honey, agave, etc) because they are added to everything.
  • In 2010, the average consumption of sweetened products was 131.9 lb/person/year.  This was an increase from 2009.

My Exam Was On A Low Carb Diet

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{This post was started last night.}

One three-hour review session probably wasn’t enough, but at least I don’t think I failed today’s exam.  And I handed in my paper too so now it’s two down, one to go for this week; phew!  I did make one really silly (really embarrassing!) mistake that is going to cost me a lot of points.  I was thinking adult DRIs for CHO but fixating on percentages for CHO in the DASH diet and ended up saying that older adults require only 55-65 grams of carbohydrates each day!  <– Carbs are the primary energy source for brain function and the RDA is 130 grams/day!

I think I needed more coffee.

That’s ice, Godiva Pumpkin Spice Coffee, Plain Silk Almond Milk, and a big splash of English Toffee Syrup.  I tasted before sweetening and sadly I don’t think I like the Godiva Pumpkin Spice Coffee outside of pumpkin latte oatmeal.  Too much spice for me.  I brought the rest of the bag in to my friend Kim and she’s going to report back.

Here was the rest of breakfast.

A 2% Fage with Strawberry.

And a Berries GoMega Superfood Bar that Odwalla sent me to try.

I didn’t care for the bar and only ended up eating two small bites.  My negative review is for a positive reason though – this tasted like a berry muffin!  It’s just that I don’t like muffins all that much.  I shared with a friend who confirmed my muffin assessment.  We did admire that it provided 25% percent daily value of your Folate and Calcium and 50% daily value for Vitamin E for only 210 calories.  If you are a muffin person I recommend it.

Lunch was a bagel sandwich that I recommend to everyone.

Cinnamon Raisin Bagel Thin + Applegate Farms Honey Maple Turkey + reduced fat pumpkin cream cheese (mine is from Einstein’s Bagel Bros) = Yum!

I’ll be honest and admit that this could have used a slice of cheese, but other than that it was pure perfection.

I brought in the rest of the Ghirardelli dark chocolate (a Foodbuzz sample) to share with the girls as study fuel.

One piece was enough for me.

And before I knew it – mostly because I was thinking too hard to look at the clock – my exam was done and one final class stood between me and freedom!

In this case, freedom meant beer.

Adam and I split this Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale 40/60 his favor.  Tasting note – not bad, but not really pumpkin-y either.

And I drank this Dogfish Head Punkin Ale all by myself.

I really did taste pumpkin, brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg.  And beer!  This is my favorite pumpkin brew so far this season (2nd would be Shock Top’s pumpkin).

Notes – I hadn’t had much to eat, I was tired, I’m a lightweight.  Those notes are important because what I did next was get drunk and go to bed at 8:30 pm!  Haha, I’m sure I needed the sleep.

I’m feeling well-rested now, which is awesome because I’ve got to do some serious learning for tomorrow’s exam.  Hope everyone is having a good week!