After Lunch Mints

It’s Friday!  My sleep total for the last 2 days is still only at about 8 hours but somehow I managed to make it to the gym this morning.  I didn’t get up quite on time, but I made it. I did have to cut my workout a bit short to make it back to campus on time for class, but I figured it was better than skipping it entirely (<– what would have happened if I had tried to wait and go after class).

8 sets of 3 minutes running / 2 minutes walking.  42 minutes and 3.5 miles with cool down.

I had to skip breakfast too, but it was worth it.  Besides, I was busy doing important things like shrouding myself in pinks and purples instead of drying my hair.

When I did finally get “breakfast” at noon I stuck with the color theme.

Those two chopped plucots are perched on a bowl of Wegman’s Low-fat Honey Yogurt.

The gratuitous dog picture means I approve!  The yogurt’s texture was creamy and good and the flavor was pure honey.

The bowl was delicious.

Lunch was better though.  I bet you know what I had.

2 Buffalo Chicken Cupcakes.

Ah-mazing.  I hope with all of my heart that y’all will try that recipe at home.

I also had a salad.  Romaine topped with peanut sauce, green onions, shredded carrots, and dry roasted peanuts.

The green onions were a fun addition.

Dessert happened too.

This recipe wasn’t on my baking roster, but it was a necessary last-minute addition.  My friend Kim unwrapped a piece of gum in class today and at first I thought the wrapper was an Andes Mint.  That was it.

I made a half recipe of our favorite brownies with Andes mints layered in the middle.  I had three smallish ones.

Amazing as well.

And I wasn’t done in the kitchen yet.  I’m going to be out of the house all day tomorrow so I whipped up lunch in advance.

A random mishmash of unmeasured amounts of – spaghetti, linguine, shredded chicken, skim milk, medium buffalo sauce, reduced fat cream cheese, mozzarella, cheddar, blue cheese, spinach, brocoli, and peas.  I had a few bites and it was very good; I’m looking forward to lunch tomorrow.

I’m also looking forward to bed!  I’m still not really tired, but I can tell that sleep is going to feel good.  The plan for dinner is a frozen meal and a beer and then I hope to turn in early.

Pick your poison – Junior Mints, York Patties, or Andes?

Has Been And Will Be

Howdy!  It has been – and will be – a long day, so I’ll keep this quick.

My morning started with a trip to the gym.  My CT10k plan called for 11 sets of 3 minutes running / 2 minutes walking, but today was my worst workout ever so I had to mix it up a bit.  My calves were soooooo tight.  I ran and walked super slowly and stopped practically every 5 minutes to stretch but my legs just wouldn’t feel right.  I ended up doing 6 sets of 3/2, followed by 30 minutes of slow walking with my notecards, and then another 6 sets of 3/2.  90 minutes and 6.7 miles in total.  And after my walk home my legs now feel completely better; weird!

I drank a grape G2 while I was at the gym.

Technically this was a drink purchase but I’m not going to count it.  I was feeling very light-headed so calories were a necessity and not just a desire for something other than water.  I am going to buy a few larger (read cheaper unit cost) G2s next time I’m at the store though.

I ate lunch on my walk to school, or at least attempted to.  First, a delightfully crunchy pink lady apple.

Next, I packed a B’More Skyr Vanilla Smoothie.

I had such high hopes – the packaging was neat and I adore Siggi’s skyr yogurts – but alas, stevia.  Yuck, I wish I had looked at the ingredient list more carefully.  I had to throw the drink out after just two sips.  Then I spent the rest of the afternoon bemoaning our no-take-out challenge; I didn’t have anything else to eat and I was starving!

I stayed strong though, and even managed to focus intently for my test.  I’m never really sure, but I think this one went much better than the last few.  Fingers crossed.

And in even better news, the husband got out early from the hospital in time to drive me home from school.  Thus bringing me to food 90% more quickly.

Those are cola gummis I got in Toronto and they were fabulous.  I have the rest of my stash packed for lunch tomorrow and I just can’t wait.

I also made an extraordinary sandwich.

A Sandwich Thin topped with Applegate Farms roasted turkey, sharp cheddar, and tons of sliced sweet pickles.

Mmmmmmmn!  When I was in middle school I’d occasionally pack pickle and cheddar sandwiches for lunch and they are still rocking my socks today.

My delicious sandwich was eaten on the go.  It was warm enough this afternoon to walk Webster sans coats!

We still have more freezing days ahead of us, but it was nice to get a little taste of spring.

Dinner was an oldie but a goodie.

Easy Peasy Peanut Noodles, with an updated recipe page.

Plus the last serving of Malted Heath Bar Toffee Blondie 2 Ingredient Ice Cream for dessert.

I’m pretty sad to see it go.

We’ll call dinner carbo-loading for the marathon night ahead of me.  The things I have to get done for tomorrow list includes studying for my first stats test, three homework assignments for clinical, and a major assignment for management.  And the number things on the list I’m done with is – zero.  Whoops!  Guess I needed to do some work last weekend.

I’m not sure when (or if!) I’ll get to bed but I foresee some midnight snacking in my future.  Sweet dreams to the rest of you!

Thai Chicken Pizza

Is anyone else wishing it was Thursday?  Actually, I’m wishing it was still Monday!  I have a lot (a lot, a lot, a lot) of big school stuff going on this week and I’m so not ready.  I spent too much of my morning worrying and not enough of it working.  Such is life; and I finally got over feeling overwhelmed and got some serious work done this evening.

Breakfast was berrytastic.

Greek Gods Honey Strawberry Greek Yogurt topped with blackberries and a drizzle of maple syrup.

I underestimated how sweet the fresh berries would be (not sour at all!) and this bowl ended up being a little too sugary.  The full-fat Greek Yogurt is sweeter than the 0% varieties too.  But the new-to-me flavor receives two thumbs up.

I also made myself something hot for the walk to school.

A double-brewed (2 bags tea to 1 cup water) mug of Tea Republic’s red velvet tea with sugar and plain almond milk.

We had a mock Statistics test today before our first real test on Thursday and it went pretty well.  We are allowed to bring a “cheat sheet” in so I’m not too worried.  I do have to actually make the sheet though!

When I got home I found a package of homemade goodies from my mother-in-law.

I helped myself to many white chocolate dipped pretzels with sprinkles.

And for lunch I helped myself to one of the husband’s tupperwares.

I made him spaghetti with turnip greens, brocoli, and tomato sauce for lunches this week.  I gussied up my stolen bowl by reheating it in a skillet with evoo and an egg.

The crunchy, almost burnt bits are my favorite.  And not to worry, I packed Adam a sandwich for tomorrow.

Speak of the devil my hero, when Adam got home this afternoon he made me a big bowl of airpopped ‘corn.

I haaaate cleaning the airpopper and Adam is so sweet to me about regularly dealing with it.  As long as you leave off the butter, popcorn makes the best study snack.

Dinner was inspired by my favorite chain restaurant meal.

California Pizza Kitchen’s Thai Chicken Pizza.  The Thai Chicken Salad is my favorite but the pizza’s a close second.

For our version we topped a store-bought crust with –

  • Wegman’s peanut sauce
  • shredded chicken
  • chopped green onions
  • leftover carrots from the Bahn Mi
  • 2% reduced fat mozzarella
  • cocktail peanuts
  • sesame oil (rubbed into the crust)

It was fantastic!  I could only finish one of my slices though; apparently half a pizza was a little too much!  But I ate all of my roasted zucchini.

Other than green beans (the long-term reigning favorite), zucchini is this year’s favorite vegetable for roasting.

What is your favorite chain restaurant?

My 2nd Weekend

It’s hump day, but my week is just beginning!  I spent Sunday through Tuesday doing nothing more than eating and watching TV.  Seriously, nothing more.  I stuck mostly to popcorn and “Futurama.”  It was great.  It was a good thing I had my “2nd weekend;” we had Monday and Tuesday off for Presidents’ Day.  But I do have to buckle down now to make it through the rest of the week.

I started today by fueling up with a good big breakfast.  I was super hungry and somehow my morning meal turned into a multiple course affair.  First, Amande Coconut Yogurt.

Made with cultured almond milk, Amande makes the best vegan yogurt I’ve ever had.  Adam is completely obsessed with and swears he’s never eating regular yogurt again.  I topped mine with a crumbled Bananas Foster Bar.

And another bar found its way into my mouth too.

Plus an apple.

And a bun with SmartBalance Light.

Now, what’s for lunch?  🙂

See If They’ve Got Any Chocolate Bananas, Foster

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!

Day Of Work

After two very (very, very, very) lazy days, it was time for a day of work. This Sunday was all about getting things done. I –

  • put away two loads of laundry
  • did some dishes
  • ran some errands
  • organized my school binder
  • made all of my note cards from last week’s notes
  • did a case study for clinical practice
  • made a delicious dinner

Breakfast was worth a thumbs up too.

I stirred a Liberte Coconut Yogurt into a big scoop of 1% large curd cottage cheese, topped with shredded sweetened coconut.

The coconut flavor was nice, but the resulting texture was mind-blowing. Too creamy for words.

In between errands and school work was lunch.

I picked up a grab bag-style to-go container from the Co-op.

A salad of yam, corn, and black beans; cilantro tofu; peanut tofu with lots of broccoli; and a little bit of vegan pasta salad.

We took Webster with us on our walking errands and his little sweater was so becoming!

He’s still not 100% down with snow, and shivers like a total wimp.  I tease him mercilessly, telling him that his ancestors in Germany only used to hunt badgers in a climate-controlled living room.

While we were out I found a new M&M variety – Dark Chocolate Mint!

Delish.  These had just the right level of chill to them.

Sometime between the lunch and dinner hours we had salads.

Romaine with chopped cucumbers and a dressing made of the remains of the yogurt Caesar shaken with evoo and cider vinegar.

Dinner was a real winner.

For 4 servings of creamy, cheesy, buttery, vegetarian yet protein-rich pasta, combine –

  • ~ 4 servings of small shape pasta, cooked
  • ~ 1.5 cups peas
  • 2 pint mushrooms sautéed with chopped green onion and 5 Tbsp butter
  • 4 oz sharp cheddar, shredded
  • 12 oz 0% Plain Fage

So much yum! I didn’t tell the husband that there was plain Greek yogurt (which he thinks he hates) in the pasta and I didn’t hear any complaints. I think pasta with peas and cheese might be our favorite dish.

I’ve got to get back to work; I’m going to hit with week with running start!

Which flavors of M&M’s have you gotten to try?  I think I’ve had them all – regular, peanut, almond, peanut butter, dark chocolate, pretzel, cinnamon, and coconut – the only flavor I missed with strawberry pb which I never found despite hours of searching!

Cloud 6ish

Holy crap!  It’s late at night and we just got some terrible money news so this post is going to have to be quick before it devolves into the blogging equivalent of sobbing.  Not pretty.

Statistics was fine, as of right now it seems like I can understand the concepts.  The hospital was fine, though we do have a lot of work to do.  My evening class was more anxiety ridden than fine; among other assignments we will have to create a 6-week staffing schedule for an imaginary clinic, figure out the budget for that clinic, and create an imaginary business plan.  Yikes!

We had an hour break between clinic and evening class when I could eat my packed lunch.  A turkey bagel sandwich.

That’s a toasted whole wheat multi-grain bagel topped with strawberry cream cheese and 2 slices of Applegate Farm’s roasted sliced turkey.

A baggie of roasted green beans.

And 4 gummi cola bottles.

The gummies were amazing, but I bought them in Toronto so it’ll be awhile before I can get more.

When I got home from class I ate a Voskos 0% Honey Vanilla Bean Greek Yogurt.

This was amazing.  Seriously.  The texture was pillowy like a cloud!  I do love other Greek yogurts but this was totally different and yet equally amazing.  If the sour cream-like texture of Fage bothers you, then I highly recommend trying out Voskos.

Which Greek yogurt variety/brand do you recommend for good texture?

Yucky Yogurt

This (god-awful) photo sure feels official!

I had my first day of clinical practice this afternoon.  It went well, and wasn’t as scary as I was expecting, but we’ll see how I feel once we actually start doing stuff 😉  For now there’s not a whole lot to report.

I had statistics before I headed to the hospital, but again I’m not quite sure what to make of it yet.  I do know that there is already a conflict with stats and clinic in February, but I’m hoping that knowing about it this far in advance will let me figure out a solution.

I didn’t eat anything after my little breakfast and I made it through the hospital without a hunger issue so as long as I have my retainers (probably another month or so) I’ll probably stick with that schedule on Tuesdays.  But on Thursdays with a 3rd class in the evening I’ll have to pack food.

When I got home this afternoon I made myself a Stonyfield Low-Fat French Vanilla Yogurt with a S’mores Cup crumbled on top.

This bowl was as big a fail as breakfast!  I just don’t like Stonyfield yogurt any more.  I love the company’s values and flavor offerings so I want to like it, but the texture isn’t right.  Checking the ingredient list I think it must be the pectin because the yogurt is thick in a gross goopy, snotty way.  It sort of reminds me of smoothies made with xanthan gum, and not in a good way.  I ate the top layer off – I wasn’t about to waste a S’mores Cup! – but had to throw away the rest of the yogurt.

Even though I was hungry, I managed to hop on another productive streak before dinner.  I cleaned the kitchen, did the dishes, and finished updating my clinic notebook.  And roasted some broccoli into perfection for dinner.

This easy leftover meal hit the spot.  A small serving of Orange Peel Shrimp, a 1/3 cup of rice, and a bunch of roasted broccoli all tossed together.

Yum.  But the rest of the day’s disappointing meals have caught up with me and I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to eat a snack before bed.  Right now I’ve got to hurry into the shower so I’m ready for the 9pm State of the Union.  FYI – The 2012 State of the Union is live-streaming here for those of us that don’t have cable.

Have you eaten a Stonyfield yogurt recently?  What was your opinion?