Back to work.

I was so busy Monday that I didn't get to blog. So here is Monday and Tuesday.

Monday

Monday morning I woke up and decided to have a bowl of multi grain Cheerios with a peach, raspberries, and skim milk for breakfast.

Lunch was not typical in that I ate a Luna bar and then went to the mall to get frozen yogurt at Mr. Smoothie....yum:)

After lunch, Steve and I went on a 20 mile bike ride. My average heart rate was 156 and the highest it got was 175. I burned 650 calories in 1 hour 15 minutes.

After our bike ride I had orange juice mixed with sparkling water. I had to rush to shower and get to our neighbors by 5pm. This was the first time they had invited us to dinner in the almost 2 years we lived in our house.

I didn't take any pictures because this was the first time we spent more than 5 minutes with our neighbors. Didn't want to weird them out. I ate a very good baked potato with salt and pepper, cooked green beans, a piece of garlic bread, and a little salad.

For dessert I had a piece of homemade apple pie, which was outstanding. Oh I also had a wine cooler with dinner.

Tuesday

For breakfast I had oatmeal, a peach, and a vanilla greek yogurt. This was so filling that I was amazed. I guess it was all the protein in the greek yogurt.

My yogurt held me until lunch at 12:15. I had some of the whole wheat orzo salad I made over the weekend (orzo, artichokes, chick peas, tomatoes, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar). Mixed into the pasta salad was one of my favorite Garden Burgers:


Here is the pasta salad mixed with the garden burger:


Different view:)


With my pasta salad I had some grapes:



My afternoon snack around 4pm was a Kashi bar and a skim sugar free vanilla latte.

While making dinner I snacked on a handful of Kashi crackers.

For dinner I made Vegan ravioli with a sauce I made with jarred spaghetti sauce, morningstar crumbles, mushrooms, and chick peas. I picked up this ravioli at Whole Foods and I highly recommend it. Steve loves it too. I'm so lucky that he enjoys meals without meat (even though he enjoys a good steak when he can)!

Ravioli cooked with sauce:

Ravioli with a salad:

After dinner Steve, Sophie, and I took a walk at North Park, which is 5 minutes from our house. A walk around the lake can be 5 miles, or there is a shortcut that we use often which is 4.7 miles. Today, Sophie was so good running and walking (Steve only had to hold her for 1 mile total I bet). We averaged 14 minutes per mile. So the walk was 1 hour 16 minutes total.

Driving to the park:

Here are some views of North Park. The path is around a huge lake.

After we got home, and I did some cleaning and packed the lunches, I enjoyed some grapes:

I am super tired and have a busy work day tomorrow, so goodnight, sleep tight!!

Rascal Flatts and long post!

Steve and I have been busy this long weekend, so I didn't have time to post. So below is a long post.....

First to answer the comments about the potato in Thursday's post. It was stuffed with corn, pinto beans, and salsa. The recipe comes from a great cookbook "Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites."

Friday

I wanted to be at work before 7am, because I had a lot to do. I didn't have the time to pack up my food the night before, so Friday morning I grabbed a few things to eat.

On the way to work I stopped to get an iced latte. I also had a packet of granola that I bought at whole food.

For a late morning snack I had some grapes.

For lunch I decided to go to Pita Pit and had a falafal whole wheat pita with a lot of veggies. I also had baked lays and a diet coke.

I had an apple around 4pm.

For dinner I made multicolored gnocchi from Target. For the sauce I started with my favorite Newman's Own sauce and added mushrooms, chick peas, artichoke, and Morningstar crumbles.

Close up of dinner:
Even Sophie likes when we eat outside:

Saturday

I woke up and had 2 mini bagels with assorted toppings. Each mini bagel has 130 calories, and I only use a total of 1.5 tablespoons of pb & company peanut butter.

Before lunch I ran 2.5 miles on our treadmill. We were doing a lot of house work, so there wasn't a lot of time for a good workout.

For lunch I had a little bit of left over gnocchi, some pasta salad I mixed up (whole wheat orzo with tomatoes, artichokes, chick peas, and some olive oil and balsamic vinegar), and some Kashi crackers.

After lunch I had a sweet tooth and decided to have some chocolate and dried cherries.

Around 5pm Steve and I left to go to the Rascal Flatts concert, we packed up food to tailgate and picked up two friends on the way.

No food pictures from the concert, but I had a yummy Garden Burger (the fake chicken one) without a bun and some baked lays and pretzels on the side. I also had diet coke mixed with parrot bay rum. Everyone else was enjoying beer, but I'm not a beer drinker.

Here is Steve and I with funny lights in front because the camera was on the action setting:

We had lawn seats, and here is a view of Rascal Flatts from where we were standing:

I just love Rascal Flatts and this was my 4th time seeing them live.

After the concert I had some more baked lays and pretzels.

Sunday

Sunday morning I decided to mix some Kix, Kashi Go Lean Crunch, dried cherries, and trail mix for my breakfast.

After finishing my mixture, I had some chocolate milk (no picture).

For lunch Steve and I went to Qdoba and I had the Vegetarian Mexican Gumbo and some chips and guacamole.

Before dinner we met another couple for a nice bike ride. We only did 11 miles, but it was a nice casual ride.

For dinner we went to an Indian restaurant. So sorry but still no pictures. These friends, one is another attorney at my firm, do not know about the blog, so I didn't want to weird them out by breaking out the camera.

Okay one last day of the 3 day weekend. Have a happy labor day everyone!!

Ready for the Weekend!

I'm very tired and need to get to work early tomorrow, so this is going to be a little short.

Iced Skim Sugar Free Caramel Latte on the way to work:


I had oatmeal with peaches and raspberries and about 4 oz of yogurt.


I had an apple at 11am to fuel me for my noon workout.

At the gym I ran 2.5 miles and did bicep and triceps weight exercises (6 different exercise, 3 sets of 8-10 each).


I had a meeting after the gym and didn't have time to eat my lunch, so at the meeting I had an apple juice with 140 calories to refuel a little until I could eat.


I ate lunch around 2:30. I had a leftover potato that I made last Sunday and some tomatoes.

A little after lunch I ate my snack with was sugar free pudding mixed with strawberries.

Steve and I dropped off Sophie at my mom's house this morning to play with her dogs for the day. So my mom cooked us a wonderful dinner, which was ready when we got to her house after work.

I had brown rice, bean salad, hummus, broccoli, salad, and some pita chips. I even went back for more after I finished this plate (no pictures of the seconds).

Steve and I also stopped for ice cream at a local place and I am now super super full, in not a good way! No picture of the ice cream.

Have a great night! I'm so excited for the 3 day weekend!

Stressful day.

Today started out stressful and continued to be that way all day. I was getting emails on my work blackberry before 8am when I was trying to make my way through traffic to get to work. So at 8am I already felt like I was running behind. I didn't get the chance to leave my office to go to the gym or anywhere for that matter.

Breakfast was a mini bagel with a 100 calorie pack of Justin's Nut Butter Maple Almond Butter and a banana.

I had a 11am snack of grapes.

Lunch was 2/3 cup of vegetarian chili over a piece of rye bread from a local bakery.

After lunch my stress left me wanting chocolate. I really wanted frozen yogurt, but I don't know anywhere downtown to get that. So I had to mini pieces of chocolate that were in my desk. I said last time I didn't like this kind much, and I still don't, but I guess it helped my craving.

Around 4pm I had a pack of Late July organic peanut butter crackers. These were AMAZING and I can't wait to have them again!! They were only 120 calories, although the crackers where not whole wheat, so the protein and fiber wasn't great.

When I got home I had a tiny pack of nuts from Hawaii and some Kashi Crackers.

I was in no mood to cook and Steve had MBA classes, so I had a can of Annie's Vegetarian pasta with soy meatballs. This was great because it heated in only 2 minutes and it tasted good for a canned dinner. Obviously I would have prefered something homemade, but some nights I don't have energy for using pans and the stove.

I also had the last Vita-muffin brownie and the last weight watchers ice cream sandwich for dessert (no picture)...this dessert was stress induced. My mom once sent me a card that said that Stressed spelled backwards spells Desserts, she knows me too well!!

I just did 30 minutes on our treadmill at 4.0 speed and incline at 6%. This helped me de-stress. I wanted to do 60 minutes but I needed to play with Sophie.

I love fruits and veggies!!

Once again I enjoyed an iced coffee on the way to work.

Once at work I ate at wonderful fruit salad. We still have so much fruit I have hardly touched yet (watermelon, honeydew, and a bunch of apples, plus a lot more grapes, bananas, peaches and berries). I am crazy about fruit!

I knew that I was going to do weights at lunch so around 11am I had some dark chocolate Figamajigs. I bought some of these to take to Hawaii but didn't eat any there. I really liked them, although for 150 calories they didn't really fill me up.

At noon I went and did about 40 minutes of upper body weights and abs.

After the gym I had a Gardenburger (the Vegan grilled fake chicken one). I love these and it only has 80 calories. I had mine on an english muffin with guacamole, lettuce, and tomatoes.

Extra tomatoes:

I also enjoyed a Sugar free Vanilla pudding snack with some oreo pieces that came with a yogurt, but wasn't used with the Yogurt. This was so yummy that I may email Kraft and recommend that they include mix-ins with their pudding snacks.

I ran out of food at work and was so hungry, that I asked by husband to pick up a bar from Rite Aid for me to eat on the ride home. So at 6pm I ate a Fiber One Bar (no picture).

For dinner I made stir fry vegetables with brown rice and a Helen's Kitchen Tofu Steak. I also was eating the veggies out of the pan while I was trying to cook them:)

Close up....so yummy....

For dessert I had a weight watchers ice cream sandwich, vita-muffin brownie, a tsp of peanut butter, and some Hershey's lite chocolate syrup.

I didn't get too much cardio today, but I took two short walks with Sophie (one before work and one after), did 10 minutes on our treadmill and then had the round trip .66 miles to the gym. I'd rather have a good cardio session daily, but my weight session was good today, so I guess that will have to do!

Until tomorrow....

Monday's Eats

For breakfast I grabbed a Peanut Butter Luna Bar and an iced coffee.

We have so much fruit at our house that for lunch I had a fruit salad with peaches, berries, grapes and banana. I also had a Kashi Crunchy Bar.

For an afternoon snack I had a Starbucks Vivanno with skim milk instead of 2%.

Dinner was a repeat of yesterday's lunch, I used the last of the left over pinto beans and corn I had from Saturday's dinner and I added some salsa, morningstar crumbles, lettuce, and guacamole. I also had Kashi crackers and soy cheese on the side.

After dinner I took Sophie with me to the park, I did my 4.6 mile walk but had to carry her a lot of the way.

When I got home I had some orange juice mixed with sparkling water. I may have another one of these after I'm done blogging.

Have a great night!

Celebration Sunday!

I was pretty busy last night getting ready for the week, so here is Sunday:

I enjoyed Saturday's breakfast so much that I had it again Sunday. Today I ate it out on our deck, so a little change of scenery:)

I had an iced coffee and 2 pieces of chocolate for a little snack.

For lunch I mixed a bunch of leftovers together for a burrito. I had a few spoonfuls of corn, pinto beans, salsa, morningstar crumbles, guacamole and lettuce. This was so tasty and really filling.

Here is a better close-up:

For dinner we went to my younger brother's house. Although, my mom brought all the food and cooked for him and his girlfriend made some of the appetizers, so he got off easy. My other brother and sister-in-law came with my 5 month old nephew. My mom, younger brother, and sister-in-law all have August birthdays so we were celebrating all at once.

I had a baked potato with salsa, broccoli, tostitos, and some tomato.

I didn't take a picture, but I also had some of the birthday cake that Steve and I brought from Sam's Club.

Okay off to the dentist and then work. Have a great Monday!!!