Sick of it yet?

Hopefully you’re not sick of pancakes. Because if you are, you’re out of luck.

But you shouldn’t be sick of them because pumpkin pancakes are fab guys. Quite fab.

But if you are sick of them, then here’s yesterday’s breakfast.

Mmmm pomegranate seeds. Psss $1 each at Vons this week.

Hopefully you’re not sick of seeing salads the size of Texas mixing bowls.

Because I’m sure I’ll have another one next week.

Hopefully you’re not sick of treadmill interval workouts because I did a new one on Thursday.

• 1/4 mile warm-up
• 1/2 mile @ 6.0 mph
• 1/4 mile @ 6.5 mph
• 1/4 mile @ 7 mph
• 1/4 mile @ 6.0 mph
• 1/4 mile @ 8.0 mph
• 1/4 mile @ 6.0 mph
• .1 mile @ 6.5, .1 mile @ 7.0, .1 @ 7.5, .1 @ 8.0 (ascending)
• .1 @ 7.5, .1 @ 7.0, .1 @ 6.5, .1 @ 6.0 (descending)
• 1/4 mile walk
• 1/4 mile @ 6.0 mph
• 1/4 mile @ 7.5 mph
• Repeat ascending/descending intervals

Total: ~ 4 miles

I was getting bored of 1/4 mile intervals, so figured I would work with .1 mile intervals instead.

Hopefully you’re not sick of self portraits, which you shouldn’t be, since I don’t post many on the blog.

Wearing my “new” dress I asked you guys your opinions on.

Ew I need to clean my mirror.

I definitely am not sick of these yet – the most addicting things ever.

Dang puppy chow. I have a handful every time I go into the kitchen (obviously been unpictured on the blog – I have random handfuls, so they always slip my mind…but definitely do add up). Especially since I’ve eaten half the bag. Thank you Dang you to our friend who made it for us last weekend.

Heaven

No – not because I used up my empty Sunbutter jar.

• 1/3 cup oats + 2/3 c. soymilk
• 1/2 c pumpkin
• 2 egg whites
• Pie spice + maple syrup
• 1/2 banana
• Nature’s Path PB granola
• Spoonfuls of strained yogurt mixed in
• Spoonful of homemade pumpkin cream cheese

Or because I was genius enough to top my oats with some puppy chow.

Nor was it the fact that I had delicious snackies in the library.

Date Heart Thrive bar (which I swear gave me a little bit of tummy issues later on)

I do however, think my idea of heaven would include this salad bar floating up there somewhere in the sky with me.

Remember when I told you of the deal our campus market is doing for the grand opening of their salad bar? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was the best thing ever to lay eyes upon. And this massive $12 beast only cost me $3.50. The lid to my container wouldn’t even close. Guys, I was in heaven at this bar. Every meat imaginable + tofu! Cheeses (feta!!), kidney beans, chickpeas, mushrooms, bell peppers, corn (!!), beets, craisins, walnuts, olives – holy moly patroley.

I’m not ashamed to say I went back to campus early for my meeting at 6:00, just so I could get another salad for dinner. I’m also not ashamed to say I almost cried when I saw the salad bar was empty.

And I’m definitely not ashamed to say that free pizza for dinner at my meeting was not quite replacement enough.

Pesto spinach & feta slice + slice of Veggie.

Thank god for free pizza or I would’ve starved.

Pre-dinner/meeting I snacked on pistachios & carrots.

And post-din, an unpictured Asian pear, Tootsie pop, and hot chocolate (x2) throughout the night.

Okay, maybe I really should re-read over some of my calculations before my lab midterm tomorrow.

I want more salad.

A grand old time

As I ran out of my beloved Einstein’s pumpkin cream cheese last week, I tried to re-create it myself my mixing:

• Trader Joe’s reduced fat cream cheese
• ~1/2 cup pumpkin
• Pumpkin pie spice
• Agave

Unfortunately, this cream cheese has that fake “non-fat” cream cheese taste to it, even though it’s only reduced fat. I should have stuck with Philedalphia brand. But it tastes decent enough! I’m tempted to remake it with a better brand of cream cheese.

Smeared a little of that onto my pumpkin pancakes this morning.

Also topped with some

• Strained yogurt
• Nature’s Path PB granola
• Sunbutter (on 2 on the pancakes)
• Syrup

Overboard on toppings? Who me?

Gym was awesome. I felt great on my run – much better than Sunday & Monday’s workout. I think I’m finally recovered from the weekend, hah. Or not so funny…

Total: 4 miles of 1/4 mile intervals (ranging from 6.0 – 8.0 mph) + 15 minutes ab work

I was a sweaty beast afterwards

On the drive to work, I dug into part of my packed lunch, since I didn’t have a post-gym snack.  I was hangry and knew I wouldn’t have a chance to eat for another 1 1/2 hours.

And then once at work and after the kiddies were down for their nap, I put together the rest of my mid-day meal.

Blueberry Oikos with Kashi Honey Sunshine.

I actually like Chobani’s blueberry better. It’s been about a month since I’ve had one, but I remember it being more creamy.

And a WW english muffin with pepperjack cheese.

Afternoon snackages.

And then dinner which I slowly and thoroughly enjoyed scarfed down in probably 3 minutes flat while the baby was close to screaming and the 2-year old was finishing her dinner. Sorry kids.  Miss. Taylor was starving and needed to eat.

Kashi southwest chicken & black bean meal. Topped with some cheddar cheee (post-picture).  And a couple of tortilla chips for dipping.

Mehh, not my fave. But I had it in the freezer to use up. So use it up I did.

How did this sneak into my backpack?

Mmm what a grand time.

Can I just say that 100 Grands, Take 5, and Twix’s are seriously some of the best gifts ever granted to this planet? Thank you.

I’m glad this “dinner” held me over for the rest of the night a whole 1 hour. Wooohoo!!!

So I stopped for a froyo on the drive home. Chocolate & vanilla swirl + pumpkin.

And then was of course still hungry later that night. I spotted this on Whit’s blog a bit ago, and decided to try a micro’d pumpkin pie out for myself.

• ~1/2 c. pumpkin
• 1 egg white
• Spices
• Maple syrup

Microwaved for 2 minutes, topped with some greek yogurt & sunbutter…

It was more a bowl of pumpkin mush….but still delicious pumpkin mush As I go back and read the actual directions now, I realize it probalby should have been on a plate and micro’d for 3 minutes. This, my friends, shall be re-done in the future. Oh yes it shall.

And what night doesn’t end with hot chocolate, of course? Do I even need to tell you that? Just assume every night ends with hot chocolate. Ya’ dig?

And now it’s 11:08 and exactly 1 hour past when I planned to go to bed. I’m so glad I always stick to my “bed-time”. Sweet dreams all.

I do orange

I attempted some more homamde Greek yogurt last night, this week with a cheaper storebrand – Lucerine’s non-fat plain.

I didn’t think that brands of yogurt would matter, but I noticed something right away compared to last time. I ended up with only about 1/4 of the amount of liquid strained out as my last batch with the Trader Joe’s organic yogurt. There was still a little liquid left on the top, so it just didn’t strain as well. I found this rather interesting. Maybe TJ’s yogurt is worth the extra .50 cents to strain?

I incorporated this into my breakfast.

• Strained plain yogurt with agave
• Kashi good friends
• Nature’s Path pecan crunch cereal
• Flaxseed
• Bananas
• Sunbutter

Yes, there’s yogurt under there.

Yummm. The yogurt still tasted good Though not quite as thick.

I was so tempted to skip my workout after class. I get awful heart burn symptoms occasionally (I don’t think it’s heart burn exactly, but it’s a burning pain in my chest, so that’s what I call it. And yes, I’ve been to the doctor about it, and have yet to figure it out), especially for about a week or so after drinking. So I was greatly suffering from it today. It was so bad in class that I felt nauseous.

But I told myself to just do the stairmaster easy for 15 minutes, and before I knew it I had gone 30 minutes on level 10. Followed by 15 minutes of abs.

Post-gym I tried this bar for the first time:

Honestly? Not a fan. I was so excited to try it – so many people love this flavor! But it just tasted like another Clif bar to me, with that chalky Clif bar flavor that seems to follow every bar. The only bars I’ve truly been a fan of include the holiday flavors (Pumpkin Spice & Gingerbread), and Banana Nut Bread. The other flavors have been meh. So I whipped out a tried and true bar (that I obviously have lots of, thanks to my friend’s dislike for them, but my stash is finally dwindling!)

(Recycled picture since I was literally running to class by this point)

In between my next two classes, I ran to the campus market to load up on the salad bar (was really craving it!), and my salad rang up at $1.06! To compare, my Friday’s salad was over $6. Apparently, they’re having a 14-day special as a grand opening special for the new salad bar. I’m definitely heading back um…every day? (Sorry no picture, I also chowed down on this in class).

The next part of my lunch (once I got home from classes) included leftover spaghetti squash stir-fry from last night:

And a smoothie on my drive to work. (Blurred – in a hurry)

Some people do green smoothies. I do orange.

I couldn’t resist a few snackies at work, either.

Dinner = unpictured, but honestly nothing too exciting, so I’ll just skip to my snack after.

A delicious Nutridel cookie!

I received 2 samples of these cookies a couple of weeks ago – Flaxseed and Pecan. Crispy gourmet cookies made with wholesome, quality ingredients including oatmeal, amaranth, sesame seeds, pecans, almonds, molasses, coconut, flaxseed, sunflower seeds, cinnamon, and wheat germ. The nutrition stats aren’t bad on these suckers either.

Not bad, eh?

Looking at the cookies, they remind me of a crisp cracker. But they are delicious. I was actually quite surprised! They’re nothing like your traditional doughy or even crunchy cookie. But they have a delicious sweet and nutty taste. Both the pecan and flaxseed are yummy, and I’m sure the almond and oatmeal are just as good

I enjoyed one topped with some sunbutter. Yummmm.

And a mug of hot chocolate. Duhhh.

Cool swirly action pic.

Here’s a good piece of news: Monday’s over

Boo Bash

So our party on Friday turned out massive. Way bigger than we originally planned, but it was still fun!

Having fun decorating the night before! We went all out with lights, streamers, black lights, spider webs…had to move all the furniture around…it was hard work!

Making the “Witch’s Brew”.

4/5 of the roommates pre-craziness.

And all of us together – Little Red Riding Hood, a Bandita, Audrey Hepburn, gangster, Statue of Liberty.

Some beer pong action (which I am horrible at)

It was crazy. But honestly, our first and last party in all 3 years living here. We wanted to live it up! And like I mentioned this morning, I may have lived it up a bit too much. The whole next day wasn’t too hot, and I finally managed to feel a bit better around 7:00 – just in time to start getting ready for night #2.

To the bars! I actually managed to drink a good amount Saturday night too, but for some reason it never hit me at all. So it was a pretty sober night. But still fun.

All in all, it was a really fun weekend, and as much clean-up as the party entailed, it was a blast

Random fact: More than 35 million pounds of candy corn will be produced this year. That is nearly 9 billion pieces – enough to circle the moon nearly 21 times!

I Cheated

I have been such a bad blogger, I’m sorry. This past week was beyond busy, and then Friday I was running all around with class, study sessions, and getting ready for our party!! Then Saturday was spent cleaning, sleeping, and recoupering for that night. And now here we are on Sunday! Okay, so to recap, the past few days – I can’t believe I haven’t blogged since Wednesday?! Oh dear me.

A few of Thursday’s eats included

Pumpkin oats (to celebrate National oatmeal day, of course)

Topped with the usual, plus a sliver of a Pecan Berry Bran muffin I picked up last week and froze.

Delicious.

That massive bowl held me over for hours! I’m usually hungry for a snack in my lab, about 2-2 1/2 hours post breakfast, but I didn’t need to eat until I got home after class.

Toasted sandwich thin and scrambled egg whites + 1 egg and cheese.

I topped with sandwich thing with a smear of yogurt butter + this garlic cheese seasoning I have. And a slice of pepperjack cheese. Tasted just like garlic bread – delish!

Mmmm ketchup

I cheated…on pumpkin. I got a 1 pump peppermint Americano – one of my very favorite drinks I like to save for the holiday season.

While cramming for my Friday midterm.

Cottage cheese + cereal + almond/pine nut/pumpkin seed nut mix.

Dinner at work – Kashi curry rice pilaf with chicken, salsa, & cheddar cheese.

And a banana whip dessert

Friday’s breakkie.

2 vans multigrain waffles topped with cream cheese, banana slices, and pumpkin “frosting”.

For the frosting, I just mixed some pumpkin, greek yogurt, cinnamon, and maple syrup.

And then I hit the gym for another interval treadmill workout. I won’t post it, but it was mostly alternating:

• .25 miles @ 6.0 mph
• .25 miles @ 8 or 8.5 mph

Of course there were other speeds, warm up, cool down, and .25 mile of walking in there, but you get the drift. I ended up going 5 miles, which is close to my longest I’ve gone since my knee incident. It felt awesome, and intervals really help with making the miles pass faster on the TM (knock on wood).

Post workout snackie while last minute cramming for my midterm!

(I lived off of coffee this past week).

Then I was so busy the rest of the day (study session, hair-cut, picking up last minute things for our party..), I completely forgot to take pictures of my lunch and snacks. And I had the best salad too! Whoops! I did remember to snap a quick one of dinner. Went with my roommates when they picked up Panda Express, and honestly could not turn down the delicious smell of Chinese food!

String bean chicken, Sweet & fiery chicken, veggies, and only a few bites of the fried rice. Plus a fortune cookie of course My roommate said that you’re supposed to be able to say “in bed” after every fortune, and they all make sense, or are funny. Well mine read:

“You will soon achieve something you’ve always wanted”…in bed. LOL. We had a good laugh

Then it was party time!! But I’ll recap the Halloween portion of the weekend in my next post

We shall just say that Saturday post-party wasn’t too hot. And I couldn’t stomach to eat anything all day until dinner. When I finally managed some yogurt + cereal. And some candy of course (all unpictured – I was way out of it yesterday).

Of course, this morning I woke up starving, after eating hardly anything yetserday. So oats it was. (This pic was one from Thursday – my camera unfortunately died last night Charging it now!)

So sorry for the long delay in posting – since this one was so long (and since I don’t have the Halloween pictures yet), I’ll do a separate Festive post later on

How was everyone else’s weekend?? What did you all do/dress up as?

Let’s Play Squash

This week has been a madhouse.

3 midterms + 1 quiz + 1 research paper review write up + a 9 page case study write up for clinical nutrition = WTF are you thinking teachers?!

I promise tonight & tomorrow during my study breaks I will try and catch up on the massive amount of posts that have accumulated for me to read.

On a more happy note, I cotinued my Wednesday overnight oat tradition.

To-Go style

(Chipped mug )

Today’s topping included 1 cinnamon apple microwaved, cereal, and the last of my pumpkin cream cheese (must buy more ASAP!)

The Oikos container was just used as a travel method.

Midterm #1 was pretty killer. It was such boring, awful information that all I had to do was memorize…but really didn’t. And 40/80 questions were True/False. Seriously?

I miss running fast.  Freeee flyin at the gym:

• .25 mile walk warmup
• 1/2 mile 6 mph
• 1/2 mile 6.5 mph
• 1/4 mile 7 mph
• 1/4 mile 8 mph
• 1/4 mile 6 mph
• 1/4 mile 8 mph
• 1/4 mile 6 mph
• .25 mile walk
• 1/4 mile 6 mph
• 1/4 mile 8 mph
• 1/4 mile 6 mph
• 1/4 mile 8 mph
• 1/4 mile 8.5 mph
• 1/4 mile 6 mph

Total: 3.75 miles running. I doubt you read my workout above. I just felt like posting it, so let’s just pretend you read it, okay?

Snackie while last minute cramming for Midterm #2 (which went better than the first test. I think).

Since I got out of class early due to the test, I decided to embark upon an adventure!

I must live a sad life if I consider this an adventure.

Adventure or not, it yielded a crap load of stringy things.

The Trader Joe’s worker did comment on how I bought “quite the squash” when he saw how big it was. If they’re all the same price, you bet I would pick out the biggest one I could find.

Yay! Now I get to eat faux pasta every night for the next week!

While this was cookin’ in the microwave, I quickly threw together a lunch of Kashi curry rice pilaf + salsa + FF sour cream:

And a Chocolate PB cup vitatop with a little bit of extra sunbutter

Work…Michael’s to pick up something for this weekend…then dinner.

Sauteed broccoli + peas + pasta sauce + parm cheese over my squashy.

Mmmm veggie overload.

I think I had mine, yours, and the lady next door’s week’s worth of sodium in this meal. All I wanted afterwards was water…and a little somethin’ sweet.

Snackage will occur later this night, and I’ll bet you $100 it will be hot chocolate + something with nut butter. Tip: don’t accept this bet since it’s pretty much what I have every night.

In other news, I came across an article in US magazine yesterday (read during my study break) about this little cartoon sketch that Fox aired showing a teammate poking fun at Tony Romo for dating Jessica Simpson “after she blew up bigger than [player] Flozell Adams” and also asking “Hey, is Jessica around? We could use a defensive tackle.” Honestly? I was shocked that anyone would really play something like this. Sure, Jessica Simpson has had some ups and downs with her weight, but so have we all. She’s a beautiful woman, and has been through so much criticism over the years. Give her a break! What good are such comments are leading to? What are your thoughts on this cartoon?

Good News

Good News: I got my camera back! So you no longer have to suffer through artistic phone pictures (except on occasion) and Vlogs Unless of course, you request them.

More good news: I had time yesterday morning to cook some real oats. Which meant oats in a jar! Oh baby oh baby.

That would be cream cheese on top. My new obsession on oats.

Great news: When the girlies nap for hours on end, leaving me mucho time to study.

Leftover Kashi pizza for lunchie.

And gingerbread yogurt + cereal for el snacko.

+ an apple…unpictured.

Stupendous news: Lolli while being so studious.

Unfortunate news: No dinner pictures. Too bad I came home starving, and literally ate my dinner standing at the counter before I realized that now having my camera, means that I should get back on track with taking actual photos.

Ehh just imagine 1 lonely last pizza slice & pancakes for din. Chocolate & froyo for dessert. And 2 mugs of hot chocolate for warm study snacks

Best news: the fact that I’m a couple quarters past Senioritis by now. If seniors get senioritis, then what do 5th year students get? 2 midterms tomorrow and I hardly even care. If that’s not good news something to be worried about, I don’t know what is.

Sorry I’ve been MIA from commenting – crazy midterms & essay week. Will be better hopefully by Thursday!

Vlogging Away

I made my own Greek yogurt last night according to Holly’s guest post instructions. Just call me Betty Crocker (don’t ask me why since Betty didn’t strain yogurt, as far as I know).

Except then I figured it out -

This container of plain NF yogurt = $2.99
Yielded ~16-20 oz (hard to tell)

vs.

TJ’s Greek yogurt (at TJ’s) = ~ $2.50
16 oz container

So was straining my own Greek yogurt actually more expensive and more work? Hmmm…But still fun to do!

Breakkie yogurt mess made with muh new experimental yogurt, Kashi Good Friends cereal, Nature’s Path PB granola, & flaxseed. And globs of sunbutter of course.

Looks like a bowl of dirt.

Mixed up

And that’s the extent that my pictures go to today. Good news is, I should get my camera back tomorrow!

So I’ll leave you with another Vlog(!!) to answer some of your Q&A’s.

**Note: I checked and 1 mile of swimming (1700 yards) = approx 66 laps**

**I also recorded this on Sunday, and that’s why I said “wonderful weekend”!**

Oh God…more pumpkin?

First, off I want to say a huge congrats to my little sister Brookie for getting 2nd place on vault at her gymnastics meet this weekend 9.45 – her best score yet! I’m so proud of her

Second, I’m glad you all enjoyed the le tour de France my house. Or at least pretended to like it. I’m kind of on the Vlog bandwagon now…or at least trying to make up for my lack of pictures and phone photo shots.

Last night I got a bit hungry while in bed, but was too lazy to head downstairs. Then I remembered I had the sample pack that One Lucky Duck sent me sitting on my desk!

Hmm…I’ve obvoiusly been enjoying these snacks unpictured on the blog :-/

I’ve tried the Gingerbread cookies, and they were amazing. I loved the distinct taste of cashew in them. The Cheese-y Crackers crackers were also pretty tasty, although they had a strange aftertaste. But I loved the sharp taste! Last night I tried the Chocolate chips cookies and blech, was not a fan at all! Something was off and I couldn’t even eat one!

But the granola bar was quite tasty! I enjoyed the whole thing I loved the sweet, sweet sticky texture from the honey. Yumm!

This morning I woke up to prepare some pumpkin pancakes!

Rather than using a recipe, I just used the boxed Quaker oatmeal pancake mix, and added pumpkin, cinnamon, & pumpkin pie spice. They were delicious, but not as good as my made from scratch WW oatmeal pancakes

Topped with pumpkin cream cheese, sunbutter, & maple syrup.

Fueld my gym sesh quite nicely

• 2 mile run 6 mph
• .25 mile walk
• 1.5 mile run 6-8 mph intervals
• 4 minute walk 10% incline

Total: 3.5 miles running, 4.5 miles total

I seriously hadn’t done intervals in years. When I was into running long distances, I would just run miles and miles at the same speed – no intervals involved. Back in the day (about 3 years ago) when I was just running on the treadmill for fitness, I ran intervals. And man did it feel good to go fast after going at a constant 6 mph TM pace these past few months!

Post-gym, I stopped by the froyo store to check if they had pumpkin flavor – and left a happy happy gal

~ 1 serving pumpkin + cake batter froyo with some chocolate syrup (I saved the rest of the froyo in the freezer for future consumption)

Sandwich thin with PB & J

A delicious fuji.

And a pumpkin smoothie “don’t jude me, okay?” smoothie.

(recycled picture)

Boring afternoon of errands, studying, and party shopping procrastinating stuff.

And then dinner was thrown in the oven. Kashi black bean mexicali pizza topped with the last of my turkey pepps and some spinach.

I only had 1/4 of this because I filled up on about 5 servings of broccoli. Oh well, more for later!

I did get hungry later on (obviously, after only 2 puny thin crust pizza slices) so helped myself to a treat I picked up earlier.

Pumpkin chocolate chip cookie!

Warmed up in the microwave…..mmmmmm boy.

I also snagged this day old muffin (I think it was spelt bran pecan and berry?). Sorry the picture’s still in the wrapper – I don’t want to unwrap it until I actually plan to eat it.

I may or may not have another Vlog surprise tomorrow to make up for my last day of non-real camera pics. Stay tuned!!