Tag Archives: workout

Ending Sandwich Week with a Full Court Press

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Okey doke; It’s Friday night, I have a Modern Family and CSI to catch up on, and a husband waiting on the couch!

I had a ton of reading to do today before class so breakfast at home was a no-show.  I did however get all my reading done, and I learned a lot about nutritive and nonnutritive sweeteners (with and without calories).  Because knowledge is power – The ADA says that

  • There is no definitive link between obesity and sweeteners alone
  • Your body knows no difference between sugars; an apple or a soda, the sugars are all processed the same (that’s not to say that the fiber, and nutrient piece doesn’t matter)
  • There is no proven link between sweeteners and hyperactivity in children,
  • but there is some evidence that suggests a link to depression
  • Stevia has yet to be approved by the FDA

I had just a few minutes after class to pick up my portfolio project (100%) and grab food before heading to a group meeting.

PB&J wasn’t the healthiest option, but it was the cheapest, and not the unhealthiest.

Hours later, when I got out of Anatomy all I could think about was going home.  I was hungry, tired, and cold and the last thing I wanted to do was go work out.  But I told myself if I went to the gym I could buy a cookie, so I did!

We are actually running in a 5k next weekend (what, another race I’m not prepared for!?!?) so I’m trying to be gentle to my legs this week; expect to see a lot of walking breaks on the treadmill.  Today’s workout was all about the intervals –

5minutes walking, 1 running, 1w, 2r, 1w, 3r, 1w, 4r, 1w, 5r, 1w, 5r, 5w.  So, 15minutes walking, 20minutes running, 35minute workout.

Adam picked me up from the gym and we spent forever driving around, accomplishing nothing.  Sometimes it’s nice just to be together.  Plus, we split some chewy Starbursts.

When we got home it was more than time for a salad.

I topped a bed of dressed spinach with craisins, blue cheese, and some almonds from Sahale Snacks.

Divine.

Since it’s the last day of Sandwich Week I decided to go out with a bang –

or a press rather; paninis!

Step 1 – Spread some thin sliced sourdough with dijon mustard and hot pepper peach preserves (or any kind of preserve really, you just want to give it a bit of sweet).

Step 2 – Add a few pieces of thin-sliced turkey.

Step 3 – Crumble on some blue cheese.

Step 4 – Top the cheese with some thinly sliced pear.

Finally – close and press.

This sandwich was fantabulous!  The texture of paninis always drives me wild and the combo of flavors was perfect; a bit spicy, a bit sweet, and bit salty.

Make this at home!  Send me pictures!

We’re going to go find a fountain diet coke and then cuddle up on the couch.  Have a great Friday night!

Alternative Night

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It’s been a strange sort of day ’round these parts.  Very glad it’s almost Friday!

Things started off quite well, with a shockingly good bowl of oats for breakfast.

Cooked: 1/3 cup oatmeal, 1/3 cup each skim milk and water, 1 medium banana, ~1/3 cup canned pumpkin, and a pinch of salt.

Topped: 1 Tbsp each chunky peanut butter and butterscotch chips.

This was ah-MAZE-ing!  I don’t know if it’s the stove top cooking, the banana, the extended cooking time, or what, but my recent attempts at oatmeal have been my best yet.

The texture of this bowl reminded me of tapioca pudding (creamy with bits of chew) and the banana turned into banana clouds of awesomeness.

Awesome as it was, I could not finish this bowl.  Even with only 1/3 of a cup of oats, the banana, and the pumpkin, plus the decadent toppings were just too much.  I ended up leaving a couple of bites behind.

You can be sure I picked all of the banana clouds out first though 😀

And from breakfast things went downhill…..  My Anatomy quiz went ok, and lab was no more frustrating than usual, but halfway through class I was unbelievably nauseous.  I felt like I was going to throw up and I was light-headed and queasy.  The sick feeling continued all throughout the day, at one point in my food lab I actually had to go sit down.

I’m not sure what exactly caused it, because I’m feeling ok now.  Too much sugar for breakfast?  Hunger?  Residual effects from my flu shot?

Call my crazy, but in spite of my quease-factor I pushed through between classes and made a visit to the gym.  What?!  I went to school dressed in gym clothes and I wasn’t about to “waste” a day without a cute outfit!  I did 30 (difficult) minutes on the elliptical, random, level 6.  Those 30minutes were the best I felt all day!

I did feel significantly worse once the gym-high wore off though.  Extra bad news for me, a group in food lab made cheesecake today and I was too sick to eat it 😦  I did have to take a few bites of my group’s experiments, but nothing photoworthy – 3 bites of grilled cheese with different processed cheeses and small bites of puddings made from a mix and whole/2%/1%/skim milk.

I dragged myself home after lab and parked myself on the couch.  Sidenote – I have a deeply ingrained habit of rocking myself back and forth when I’m sick I and it drives the husband crazy!  Around 5, when he was fully ready to throttle me, I redeemed myself by pulling out a coupon for this –

ColdStone has debuted fall flavors!  I got a “small” cup of cookie batter and caramel apple ice cream (swoon!) with some caramel Ghirardelli mixed in.

I know it sounds insane but I felt so much better after I ate this!  I think my nausea at that point was just hunger.

Revived, I decided to do an “alternative” sandwich for tonight’s dinner.

The Wafflewich!

I used a serving of Van’s Berry Boost Waffles as my base, and sandwiched chicken salad (stewed chicken from Tuesday, mayo, pickle relish), a slice of melty Colby cheese, and a drizzle of maple syrup in between.

The waffles got a bit mushy when I microwaved them to melt the cheese, but other than that this was delicious.

Tomorrow?  The final night of Sandwich Week, a ton of school work to make up in the early morning, and some vegetables!

What “alternative” sandwiches have you created?

Jump in De Line, Rock Your Body in Time

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Ugh-dates –

1. The Wegman’s blueberry coffee is just not good 😦  It has a super burnt bitter taste.  I even added sugar (and skim milk) to my second cup and I still didn’t like it.

However, Adam says I can’t buy more until this is gone and there are some holiday flavors I’m excited about so I’ll be slugging this down.

2. The Orgo notes assignment that was due today took up my entire morning.  I was so slammed for time I couldn’t even eat!  Must work on the weekends, must work on the weekends, must work on the weekends….

UP-dates –

1. The husband has been bringing chocolate chip pumpkin squares to school and his classmates like them so much someone even requested the recipe!  It’s not actually my personal recipe (thanks, Martha), but it’s nice to feel like a good wife.

2. I lit a cinnamon pumpkin candle this morning and it brought my Halloween corner of the mantle to life.

Anyway, I didn’t have time to eat so I packed myself 2 servings of Sahale Snacks to munch during Orgo.

After my first set of classes I spent yet more time dealing with transfer credits and my class schedule.  The good news is that I’ve had two victories; the bad is that I call BS on the fact that they won’t accept my writing credits.

I spent so much time that I almost didn’t make it to the gym before lab.  I had to rush rush rush and eat food from the vending machine while I hightailed it across campus.

A pre-gym Rice Krispie treat is better than no fuel at all!

And a short work out is better than no gym time at all.  I did a quick treadmill session.

Lab went quickly tonight – all we were doing was building models – and I was home in time to make a nice dinner.  First though, I made a nice snack.

A Caramel Oikos with canned pumpkin and homemade pb.

I was starving when I got home and I didn’t want to be too hungry to enjoy my dinner.

And dinner was delicious;

I claim the 2nd night of Sandwich Week to be a success!

BLTs.  Rather, TBSTs – turkey bacon spinach tomatoes.  On sourdough with a smear of homemade mayo.

We ate roasted asparagus on the side.

Yum!  And this took all of 10minutes to throw together; dinner really can be healthy, tasty, and quick all at once.

We shelled out a bit of extra cash and bought Applegate Farms bacon; it is so much better than the other varieties we’ve had.

Turkey bacon doesn’t really make ‘bacon grease,’ but it does stick to the pan and make delicious browned bits.  There’s no chance I’m letting that go to waste; I scraped up the browned bits with a scrambled egg.

We got in the October spirit by watching “Beetlejuice” while we ate.  I love that movie, but I don’t think I’d realized before how sad it is.

I’ve got an Anatomy Lab quiz tomorrow to study for (announced at the last minute, arrrgh!), so I’m off!

What do you like on your BLTs, ya know, beyond the B, L, and T?  M (mayo or mustard)?  S&P? C(heese)?

Good Vibes, Good Vibes

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This has got to be another quick post; this week hasn’t even started yet and I already can’t wait ’til it’s over!  Today was busy, busy, busy, busy, busy (said in the magician-voice from Frosty the Snowman).  I will note that I let myself get too hungry this afternoon and ended up eating way too much; I’ll have to be careful not to let that happen again during “hell week.”

I wanted to eat breakfast on the walk to campus so I made a smoothie to go.

This was a serving of frozen Goya soursop pulp, a medium frozen banana, and a 1/2cup each coconut water and Silk Almond Milk.

It was creamy and nice, but much sweeter than I wanted (who am I?!), so I shared a lot with Adam.

We worked on campus all afternoon and I ended up getting lunch from the food aisle in the bookstore.

Amid the rows of chips I was able to find this Spicy Thai Tuna Medley.

Yum!  I never buy these because I can’t justify the cost, but the flavor is great.

I took a break mid-afternoon to hit up the gym before I left campus.  35minutes on the elliptical, random, level 6.  I took a long walk home to stretch out and stopped by the co-op to pick up a few things.

Then I worked.  (And worked and worked and worked.) It was a busy day but all of my homework for next week is complete, which means I can just focus on my exams.  Amid lab reports I ate this mini mint chip ice cream.

I probably should have made time for some veggies.  We went to the grocery store at 9pm and by the time we got home I was starving!  I dug into a nice big pickle.

And then opened up a box of French Toast Griddlers.

I tried these at BlogHer and was so obsessed with them that the rep gave me some free coupons.  Remind me after this week is over to tell you guys more about them.

I should have stopped there.  A mini bag of chips.

A serving of crackers with part-skim mozzarella melted on top (I love how this looks so much more decadent than it actually is!).

And a thing of Hi-Chews.

by the way

I knew that I was going to have a tough week, but apparently I’m sending break-down vibes to my belongings as well!  One of my favorite tops came out of the dryer with a big hole and this morning my i-pod broke.  I can’t bring it in to the store for at least another week and if it’s unfixable we can’t afford to replace it for years.  I’m so disappointed!  But it’s a good karmic reminder that I need to keep my cool this week.

Wonky WordPress

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I’m blogging after midnight on a Friday and I haven’t gone out or done any drinking; what is wrong with this picture?!?!  [Actually, you can subtract 30ish minutes from this post time-stamp because WordPress was being redonkulous]

I got in bed before 10pm again yesterday and could still barely peel myself out of bed; who’s going to tell my body about next week’s all-nighters?!  I have 9am class on Friday so I did at least manage to eat before I left the house.

Brown Cow 0% Vanilla Greek Yogurt (A 99cent find I was quick pleased with, although the texture was a bit thin.) with a strawberry honey straw.

In between my 1st and 2nd class I worked on Orgo with a friend.  And had a minor breakdown when I realized how little I know.  I also drank a big cup of coffee with skim milk. :::imagine a cup of coffee here; as I said, WordPress is insane:::  And snacked on some celery I took home from food lab.

I went to Orgo (and felt my blood pressure rise just a bit more), and then Anatomy (little higher), and then got the most ridiculous e-mail ever about our lab homework for next week and sort of lost it.  I AM SO ANGRY!  I’ll leave it at that.

Adam actually met me at school to study and I wasted a good 45minutes spazzing out at him about next week.  And then I realized something crucial – complaining doesn’t change the situation.  So I got to work.  We stayed at school until 7:30, but I am done with my homework for Monday.  I ended up grabbing dinner from the food court when I realized I wouldn’t be escaping campus as soon as I’d planned.

A Crunchwrap Supreme, with chicken, from Taco Bell.

Actually, we left school at 7:30 so we could get to UPS before it closed.  Then we went back.  I had to pick up my gym bag and do my printing; we didn’t really leave school until 9:30.

When we got home we had to put some laundry in …… and then we went for a run.  It felt a little crazy, but I made a committment to get back into shape, so I’m going to do the damn thing.  ~2miles/21minutes.  I did a quick strength/stretch when we got home, and it felt good.

Bedtime, no?

When is the craziest time you’ve ever worked out?

It’s All About Your Perception

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This morning there was an issue with the alarms – Adam actually slept through his first class! – so the big breakfast I had planned couldn’t happen.  We were in such a rush leaving the house it was not until I sat down in the car that I realized I hadn’t washed my face, brushed my teeth, or put on make-up!!!  Thank goodness I managed to grab this PB Cookie Lara Bar for breakfast.

When I got to Anatomy Lab it seemed like bad-news-bombs were just dropping all over the place –

  • we have a homework assignment, and my group’s is due even though the apparatus we were given was broken
  • I only scored a 75% on last week’s quiz
  • we now have a quiz next week (that brings my quiz/exam total for next week up to 5!)

But you know what?  My morning was better than their’s –

It’s all about perception; when things seem bad you’ve got to put them into perspective before you get upset.  By the way – yes, we did a frog lab; yes, it was awful.  I wasn’t bothered by the cats at all but Mr. Hops made me pretty sad.

In my break between labs I did some Orgo reading and ate lunch.  Plums (why did I buy so many of these?!),

and another turkey/Laughing Cow/Sandwich Thin.

Today’s Food Lab experiment was fat cookery.  My group had to prepare deep-fried Pakoda (Indian-style veggie tempura), pan-fried catfish, and fried bread (to experiment with the effects of the quality of the cooking oil).  The small room got pretty crazy with five groups frying, the smell was out of control!  I had to take three (small) bites of fried bread so I could write up my lab report and it was pretty nauseating.  I just took a tiny plate of food at the end.

Next week we are doing fruit, and I am much more excited to sample then!

I actually felt pretty sick just from that small amount of fried food, but I knew that the gym would make me feel better.  30minutes on the elliptical, random, level 6.  I kept my workout short because I was feeling awkward about just how bad I smelled!  My hair and skin are like smell sponges; when I worked at Cold Stone in high school the smell of waffle cones would waft off of me for days!

I took a shower as soon as I walked home (and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed!).  Then Adam and I took a quick fountain diet soda walk and got started on dinner.  I was actually so hungry after our walk that I ate this mini bag of kettle korn while we cooked.

Dinner was three simple steps.  Prepare some quinoa.

Pan-steam eggplant and spinach.

Make a quick curry sauce out of 0% Plain Stonyfield, curry powder, garlic powder, onion powder, and brown sugar.

Serve and consume.

Adam thought this was going to be gross and he ended up pleasantly surprised, and I thought it would be wonderful and ended up underwhelmed.  It’s all about perception!

Have you ever been so tired (or rushed!) that you forgot to brush your teeth?

More of a Mountain than a Hump

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It has been a day!  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it on the blog yet, but I have 4 exams next week so things are a little crazy.  Additionally, I’ve picked up a short-term volunteering stint with the Dietetics department at a local hospital.  Anyways, today was a bit insane.

I got into bed with a magazine at 8pm last night, and was asleep by 9:30, but my 6:50 alarm still felt pretty harsh.  That’s 9hours of sleep!!!  I guess I really was exhausted yesterday.

I didn’t have time to make breakfast but I did grab a coffee when I got from the hospital.

Equal parts house roast, sweetened English toffee cappuccino, and 2% milk.  If they had skim milk this would be my perfect cup of coffee.

I worked typing up the policy binder and creating a handout for diabetics on the clear liquid diet from 8-11.  Fact – Diabetics on the clear liquid diet are not encouraged to have sugar-free drinks, but should in fact consume 200 grams of carbohydrate throughout the day.  I am going back to work again on Monday.  It’s too bad that I can’t shadow someone in the department, but I’m glad for any exposure I can get.

The husband dropped me off at the hospital in the morning, and the department head looked at me like I was crazy when I said I was going to walk to campus.  That decision was twofold though – parking at the hospital is terrible, and my walk served as a workout since I can’t go to the gym on Wednesdays.  Hospital –> campus is a little further than 2.5miles, and the weather was perfect for a walk!

I had a short break before my first class so I snacked on this serving of Honey Nut Cheerios [stolen from the buffet last weekend].

After Orgo and Anatomy were over I sat and completed my Lab work.  I’m halfway done with next week’s work and since I’ll be busy with tests that is very helpful.  I couldn’t bring a sandwich or anything because of how long I was out of the house, so I packed this single serving of Caramel Cashew Trail Mix to munch on.

Target, I love you; this stuff is so good!  I would never purchase a big bag though, because there is no way I could keep my hand out of it and one serving packs 320calories 😀

I also ate this Clif Fruit Twist [left out the house by Camile].

I arrived at lab at 5:40 and I didn’t leave until 9pm, yikes!  We were working with molecule models and it was very time intensive.  Our new TA starts every lab off with a lesson, and even though it keeps us longer, I love it because it’s another opportunity to learn the (difficult!) subject.

Adam came to get me at 9, we drove a friend from lab home, and then we went on a short walk to get him chocolate milk.  All of which = no time for dinner.  Two thumbs down!

Honestly, it’s so late that I’m not even hungry.  Normally I don’t think skipping meals is a good thing but I know that I’ve been having crazy hunger cycles and since I honored my hunger and ate a ton a few weeks ago it seems like a good idea to honor my lack of hunger and not force it now.  Everything will even out.

Do you ever force yourself to eat when you aren’t hungry?  What’s your reasoning?

P.S.  If you haven’t yet, I’d love it if you’d vote for me for Project Food Blog.

An Afternoon Giveaway

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This is going to be a quick post, but I wanted to give y’all time to win!

Today’s been a bit crazy, but I found out some major good news about an issue with my program (via a 1.5hour meeting I didn’t have time for!) so I’m happy.  I had my 8am library class today, so I packed a Chocolate Bumble Bar to nibble between classes.

I’ve liked every BB I’ve ever tried, but this flavor is definitely a new favorite!  It was sweet in the most pleasant way, sort of like cocoa mixed with honey?!

I attended a “Welcome to the Dietetics Department” lunch this afternoon.

Fruits,

veggies,

small slice of cheese pizza.

You’d be surprised how “normal” the food is at dietetics events; the last one was just cookies and pretzels.

I snuck in a visit to the gym after my meeting.  35minutes on the elliptical, random, level 6.  Followed by a few minutes of strength/stretching.  I can’t believe how long I went without working out last year; I think I’d be going insane with school if it wasn’t for the gym!

I just got home a few minutes ago and I’ve already housed this Yoplait Greek Strawberry Yogurt.

I tried a Yoplait Greek at Kristen’s house a few months ago when I was in Orlando for my half marathon, but I hadn’t seen them available in Buffalo until last week.  While I finally found them here so I scooped some up (with my own money, fyi).  A Yoplait rep contacted me to say she saw them on the blog, and I thought of you guys!  I feel like a lot of people wouldn’t think of Yoplait because it’s not one of the “traditional” Greek brands, but it’s actually a really good product.  Additionally, I feel like this stuff could be “Gateway Greek,” for people who haven’t made the leap yet; the strawberry one is actually strawberry flavored rather than plain with fruit on the bottom.  The rep was more than happy to send me so coupons, and that’s where you guys come in!

Want to try some Yoplait Greek yogurt?  I will be picking two readers (randomly) to receive a free coupon.  All you have to do is vote for me for Foodbuzz’s Project Food Blog.  Then take a screen shot of the voting page and send it to me at emilyhwaxATgmail.com.  You have until noon on Thursday, good luck!