Sugar Coma

Unforunately, I have yet to get the gingerbread house pictures from the other night, so you’ll have to wait and see the final product. Let’s just say, it ended up a bit of a disaster 😉

I’ve been living on a sugar high these past few days. In addition to this candy filled night, I’ve also been picking at pieces of our house throughout the weekend (aka lots of candy & frosting), and enjoyed this breakfast Saturday morning.

Vans whole wheat waffles topped with sunbutter, cream cheese, syrup & granola (love crunch on my waffles). Scrambled egg whites + 1 egg & ketchup (necessity).

But wait – my roommate & her boyfriend came home with donuts to share! I never have donuts (just don’t ever get the opportunity!), so I cut a few small bites of the cinnamon roll, glazed one, and bear claw – but honestly they were extremely dry and blah.

But this cinnamon roll they made was quite the opposite! Helped myself to half of one 🙂

Fueld my gym trip quite nicely where I completed

• 4 mile dreadmill run ranging from 6 – 7.5 mph. Not so much intervals, just decided to take it realitvely easy and watch Fool’s Gold on TV
• 25 minutes upper body weights

After this, I felt a bit too lazy for whittling my middle. Whoops!

Unpictured eats throughout the day, then chowed down my salad for dinner in 5 minutes pre-work.

Rando mix of:

• Scrambled eggs
• 2 buffalo chicken meatballs
• Zucchini
• Cranberry sauce
• Spinach hommus
• Salsa
• Annie’s raspberry dressing
• Spinach

But it worked!

Work included trail mix (with M&M’s of course).

Today I knew I needed to finally get down to some studying.

First up – breakkie.

• A bit of Voskos plain yogurt (review coming soon)
• Blueberry Oikos (almost a full container)
• Kashi Heart to Heart
• Nature’s Path mesa sunrise
• TJ’s pumpkin granola
• Banana slices
• Sunbutter & pumpkin butter

Yumma! That TJ’s pumpkin granola is sooooo good guys. I’m picky with my granolas, but this stuff is the perfect granola taste to me 🙂 Just have to take it easy, since it’s pretty sweet and I know granola’s pretty high in sugar!

Next up – gym. Yeah, so the gym didn’t happen. As I tweeted about, there was no motivation whatsoever. Even though I should take advantage of free parking on campus (weekend!) and maybe take a weekday off of the gym. Didn’t happen.

I’m pretty sure my butt is imprinted into this couch permanently. I tried to study, I really did! But this take home final is going to take me 4x as long as a normal final…and I just gave up! Resorted to watching Falalala Lifetime instead 😉

Mid-afternoon, I did get a bit cold hungry and decided on hot butternut squash oatmeal.

Topped with:

• A different mix of cereals
• Frosting covered graham crackers (from our house!)
• Pumpkin cream cheese
• Sunbutter

Warmed me right up!

I eventually gave up with my take home final, and turned to ice cream. Which kind of defeats the purpose of hot oats. But it’s great distraction, let me tell you.

I’ll admit it – I went ice cream crazy. Ice cream is my biggest weakness. Some people have no control over certain foods, and for me it’s ice cream. So times this bowl by 2 4. In all fairness, it’s a baby bowl. And it ended up being part of my dinner.

Due to late oats, and the ice cream extravaganza, I never really got hungry, but I knew I needed something more satisfying around 8:30. A light egg & veggie scramble dinner did the trick.

• Zucchini
• Onion
• Mushroom
• Spinach
• 1 egg + 3 egg whites
• Nutritional yeast

Wait…

Oh, better 🙂

An unpictured cookie sneaked in there tonight as well. Picture/review tomorrow.

Until tomorrow friends.

Sugar coma….zzzzzz….

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Strawberry Fields

You can tell it’s midterms week when there are 75 people on facebook chat.

Very true.

Although I have no midterms this week, I’m still crazy stressed/busy! Hence why this is a quickie.

Operation “Eat out the Cereal”:

• Nature’s Path strawberry yogurt
• Quaker oatmeal squares
• Almond milk
• Blob of sunbutter

At the end it’s like you’re drinking strawberry milk! Mmmmm.

With coffee and my new favorite creamer I got at Whole Foods on sale.

Deeeelicious. I wish I had gotten 2 because it was on sale for only $2, and the carton was only about 3/4 full upon opening!

Gym Sesh:

• 20 minutes stairmaster level 10-11
• 30 minutes upper body strength

Knee strap felt wonderful again. I wore it on my walk to the gym and my knee didn’t hurt one bit. Can I pleeeease live in it? 😉

Post-gym snackie:

Unpictured raspberries + pumpkin smoothie.

Lunch at work – Kashi mayan bake.

Love the sweet plaintains!

And….snackies.

Mini baby cupcake.

Honeycrisp apple slices dipped in pumpkin cream cheese (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!)

Unpictured late and easy dinner of

• scrambled eggs +
• deli turkey +
• parm cheese +
• queso dip

Winning combo.

And 2 mugs of hot chocolate while studying.

Okay, I definitely should not have procrastinated the past couple days, but as I can barely keep my eyes open to blog, let alone study…I’m out.

Enjoy your hump-day dear blog friends!

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You Tricky Lara

I haven’t been as hungry as I was today in….well a while.

Breakfast was the last of my frozen oatmeal pumpkin pancakes.

With Greek yogurt & sunbutter layered between each. And all topped with syup.

Nommmmmm. Guys – sooo good. These are the best pancakes I’ve ever made. And the yogurt in each layer just adds so much.

With a bowl of fruit + yogurt. Honeydew, 1/2 a peach, 1/2 a banana.

Although I was crazy late for the bus, so after a few bites, stuck this baby in the fridge for later.

Clinical Nutrition lab midterm was ehh. We had 2 patients to evaluate and interpret their blood lab values. Then had to determine the type of anemia and write up SOAP notes (page long subjectie, objective, assessments, and plans). I knew 1 patient well enough, but got stuck on the other diagnosis. We shall see.

I was starving halfway through the test, so I kind of just wanted to be done with it so I could eat. This:

What I thought was a PB&J lara.

Bite.

“Man, this PB&J has cherry overload.”

Bite.

“Dang, weird how different bars of the same flavor can taste so different.”

Bite.

“Okay, this is one tart baby.”

Oh. Surprise!

So that’s why there was so much cherry flavor.  You tricky Lara, you.  Being in such similar wrappers.

Didn’t sweat nearly as much at the gym today. Must’ve been that ridiculous stairmaster yesterday. Evil machine.

• 2 mile run (broken into 5 min. run/2 min walk segments)
• 20 minute upper body strength
• 10 minute abs

Off to work (on the way ate my fruit/yogurt from the morning) where I had lunch. Leftover asparagus quinoa.

Obsessed with the flavors in this dish.

Still pretty hangry after this, but I tried waiting for my brain to catch up. I finally had some carrots & multiple cups of coffee, which seemed to do the trick. But not for long. Less than 3 hours later I was beyond shaky with hunger (I swear quinoa never keeps me full!). I went crazy trying to satisfy it.

Apple.

Handfuls of cereal.

Trail mix.

and 1/2 a banana.

Yesterday, I realized my free Starbucks ice cream coupon expired today, so I knew I had to use that now or never! No way was I letting that sucker go to waste 😉

I’ve tried the Caramel Macchiato flavor (love) before, so this time I decided to try out Mocha Frappucino.

Check out those swirls!

Tasted remarkably identical to a mocha frappucino (really?  Never would’ve guessed that from the description). But I still like the caramel macchiato better. Probably because I don’t like chocolate ice cream much. And I’m in love with caramel.

I also found (drumrolls please)…Pumpkin Pie yogurt!! No not Stoneyfield, but Vons/Safeway has their own brand of it (Lucerine brand). I’m a huge fan of their light gingerbread flavor. Unfortunately the pumpkin pie is low-fat and not light (so 28 g. of sugar!!), but splurged 😉 I’m sure it’s delicious! And $1 raspberries 😀

8:00 pm and a starving Tay both lead to an easy and quick dinner. (Repeat alert!)

English muffin pizzas.

Half savory: pizza sauce + ricotta + cheese + turkey pepperoni

Half sweet: pumpkin cream cheese + pumpkin & ricotta mixture + cinnamon

Small dinner, but my snacks from the afternoon finally caught up to me.

Small dinner also = snacking later. Oh who am I kidding, I always have a nightime snack, big dinner or not.

Raspberries drizzled with agave.

And hot cocoa (x2)

All right, I’m out. Finish packing is a must.

What is everyone’s night time snack of choice?
Mine is definitely ice cream. Or dates with PB/AB. And I have hot chocolate every. Single. Night.  Yummm.

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Winner winner pumpkin dinner

Okay – so pumpkin was kind of post-dinner, but whatever. It works in the title, so just go with it.

Lesson learned yesterday: Don’t skip lunch!

I had such a late and filling breakfast, that I never really had a real lunch. I hit up the gym after my 12-2 class, so a good lunch never really fit in well.

Be prepared for a bunch of beautiful phone snapshots.

Snack in class pre-gym.

+ an apple. Still on the mad hunt for the S’mores flavor!!

+ a chocolate chip cookie that a group member made us because she contributed ZERO work to the group project. Cookies make up for it…right? Actually another member mentioned she’d rather have a latte. haha. I agree 😉

Workout:

Caught up on The Hills (since unable to watch the other night due to cable outage!).

• 30 minutes stairmaster
• 20 minutes treadmill
  • 5 min run/2 min walk intervals X 2
  • Walking for a bit

I was a sweaty beast after this. My shirt was literally heavy with sweat and not an ounce of me was dry. I don’t know if I’m a heavy sweater, or if no one else in the gym works super hard, but why do I seem to be the only one saturated in there? (Sorry for the gross TMI guys).

Post-gym library snackage:

and

(Love these)

But I was starving no matter what. So I ditched that library soon enough, and came home to make an early dinner A-stat.

In the quinoa mix:

• Sauteed asparagus & onion
• Craisins
• BBQ slivered almonds
• Pumpkin seeds
• Chopped tomato
• Dressing mixture of
  • Light rice vinegar
  • Olive oil
  • Annie’s Papaya Poppyseed dressing

(x this amount of quinoa by another plate – I was hungry hungry!)

Delicisioso! The sweet flavors melded so well. And I absolutely love pumpkin seeds mixed in my quinoa dishes now.

While the quinoa was cooking, I snacked on Mary’s crackers with TJ’s queso dip. And immediately after this, I had a pumpkin + yogurt bowl.

(Recycled picture, obviously since one of Holly’s cookies is making an apperance)

And the night wasn’t complete without a bit of this action:

That would be vanilla froyo + chocolate sauce + sunbutter. The sunbutter on top was one of my best ideas ever.

I’m off for last minute studying for my Clinical Nutrition lab midterm (eeek!!). Then not sure if I’m driving home tonight or tomorrow morning. Desicions decisions….

So you all know how much I adore pumpkin, right?  (If you didn’t well then a) you’ve been living under a rock the past few weeks or b) you’re new to my blog and welcome! :-D) Well be sure to check out my guest post over at Megan’s blog! She’s a little under the weather (feel better!!) over there.

And thank you to everyone who entered my candy giveaway !

True Random Number Generator
Min: 1
Max: 92
Result:55

Congrats to Emily of Nutritious is Delicious! Shoot me an email with your address girl, so I can get your treats sent out to ya!

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A non-poopy Day

Happy Monday! But really, is there such a thing?

There is if you make it one! 🙂

I had a very “off” day yesterday (if you didn’t notice by my lack of enthusiasm in my post). I think part of the reason was the fact that it was day #4 off of exercise. That combined with excess ice cream eating left me feeling bloated, tired, and run down. I need my endorphins!

Then, last night, I received a weekly quotes email about transforming your “Poopy Days” (yes, they used those exact words). Quoted from the email:

“Use your poopy today as
fertilizer for a better tomorrow.”
-written and submitted by Debbie S., Kohler WI

Very true. I may have had a poopy Sunday, but that just makes me even more excited to have an un-poopy Monday!

What I did today to make it a Marvelous Monday:

1. Started my day with a perfect breakfast.

Pumpkin bagel (which I picked up with the cream cheese yesterday) with pumpkin cream cheese, and pumpkin pie spice PB.

The pumpkin cream cheese was fantastic. Delicious. I’m in love. And I had to include some PB in breakfast of course.  I can’t remember the last time I’ve had breakfast without nut butter.

2. Stopped at Starbucks on my way to class. Coffee in a to-go cup always tastes better to me 🙂

3. I exercised. First time in 4 days! 30 minutes stairmaster level 10-11, 10 minute ab work, and 10 minute strength.

4. Enjoyed pumpkin for lunch as well.

WW english muffin pizza – half with pizza sauce, ricotta and cheese.

Half as a “dessert” pizza – pumpkin & ricotta mixture topped with apple slices and cinnamon.

Delicious 😀

Also ate the rest of the apple and honeydew with a bit of 2% greek yogurt while this was cooking.

5. Enjoyed treats throughout the day.

Delicious fudgy brownie.

(Same pic as yesterday – but looked and tasted the same anyways)

Coconut vanilla toffee that my teacher brought back from Thailand. Um…YUM.

As my roommate commented about these toffees “I stuck it in my mouth and didn’t expect it to be so big and hard!” Wow. That’s definitely what she said.

And 2 of these See’s candies I picked up the other day.

Apple pie truffle & PB patty.  (I didn’t eat the lower right honey almond one – yucko)

Speaking of See’s candies..have you entered my giveaway yet?

6. Skipped my 12-2:00 class and took a nap instead.

Talk about posing.

7. Spent a fun hour dreaming up a Halloween party with my roommates (I think one’s in the works. Wahoo!)

8. Finished my night off with a whipped pumpkin apple pie a la mode creation.

Cottage cheese + pumpkin + cinnamon. Topped with cinnamon micro’d apple, vanilla granola, and a bit of vanilla froyo.

(Camera was dying as I took a bad picture – so this was taken via Iphone)

I was so very excited to hit up the gym today. But not so excited about my knee. I did, however, break down and orderknee sleeves last night! The physical therapist said that knee sleeves would do nothing to help my condition, but honestly, nothing has helped so I thought “Why not?!” I’ve heard such rave reviews I decided I had to try them out myself. I can’t wait for it to come in the mail.

Q&A Time!

A bunch of other bloggers have “Q & A pages” or “Q&A posts” so I think I’m going to jump on the bandwagon, if you don’t mind. So now I’m asking you to ask me Do you have any questions for me? About my life? About the world? About school? About anything? Curious lingering thoughts? Something you’ve always wanted to know? Well now’s your chance to find out! (yes – I sound like an infomercial here). Ask away! (You can post a comment or email me questions)

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Waffle…ahem…Oats Wednesday

Bad news: I scarfed down my breakfast, and didn’t have time to snap a photogenic picture.

Good news: It was the exact same breakfast as yesterday, so allow me to refresh your memory.

Oh my bad. My bowl today was white. So imagine it in a white bowl.

There you go.

Oh hey look maybe I really am starting a ritual of Waffle Overnight Oat Wednesdays!

Then it was class, gym, class, (canceled – wooooot wooooot), class, work.

I was mad starving after my gym workout, which I’ll share with you wonderful folks.

• 20 minutes upper body strength machines:
  • 2 sets 15 reps tricep machine (please don’t ask me the name)
  • 2 sets 10 reps bicep machine (same deal)
  • 2 sets 15 reps chest press
  • 3 sets 12 reps pull down machine (again – I’m not technical here)
  • 2 sets 12 reps tricep pull down
• 10 minute mat work:
  • 2 sets 15 reps bicep curls
  • 2 sets 15 reps tricep extensions
  • 1 set 15 reps bicep curl to shoulder press
  • 15 push-ups
• 30 minute treadmill
  • .2 mile warmup walk
  • 1 mile 6.0 mph
  • .2 mile walk break
  • 1 mile 6.0 mph
  • .3 mile cooldown walk

I wanted to take it easy today for me knee (it’s really been bothering me more this past week), and even that easy workout used up the whole 30 minute cardio machine limit. That’s crazy! You can barely get a 3 mile run in during that time, not including warm-up & cooldown.

Post-gym during the 15 minutes I had before class, I scarfed down this puppy.

Appetizing, no?

That would be a Cedarlane veggie & cheese burrito. Here are the innards (innards? Is that a word? If it is, it sounds weird)

Really good, but it might be because I was hangry hangry! Either way, I love their burritos/wraps! The bean & cheese is my favorite, and TJ’s even has their own version – the 98% FF bean & cheese burrito. Yes, I swear that’s what it’s called. At least I’m pretty sure.

This settled my tummy for a bit, but I was still hungry. Baby Daddy carrots during class

And another huge shiny apple.

I then hit the road to walk to my car. So far this week, I’ve either walked one way to school, or parked my car halfway and walked. Parking halfway is almost as fast as the bus, and I get in some extra walking! I used to walk multiple times per day when I lived closer, and I miss it. I hope to keep this up. At least until it rains.

On my way to work, I stopped by the AT&T store to exchange my phone. The lighting’s been messed up, and not lighting up everytime. And since it’s still within the 30 day exchange period, I don’t want to take any chances. The worker was extremely rude to me, telling me I have to do all exchanges at the Apple store. That was frustrating, since I went into work late specifically to stop at the AT&T store. Bad customer service really irritates me. At least tell me nicely!

Since See’s candies was right next door, I popped in there to pick up some Pumpkin spice lollipops! Last year I tried one, and when I went back to buy some more, they were all sold out! I mean every store and online were sold out.  Literally.  Gone.   Completely out of stock. So I made sure to get some earlier this year 😉

No See’s trip would be complete without a sample 😀

Milk chocolate buttercream. Super rich though. And I’m more a fan of the mocha or butterchew flavors – so I only had half.  What’s your favorite See’s candy? Mine is definitely the Butterscotch square or the Mocha.  Mmm.

Also wolfed down a Double Chocolate dreams vitatop with extra PB on the drive.

Hmmm…it was better than it looks. I swear.

Dinner, however, was not was as tasty as it looked.

Grilled zucchini, BBQ tofu, spinach & ricotta on grilled whole wheat. Okra fries with ketchup. And extra grilled zucchini.

The sandwich was really bland – I think that bread was old. So towards the end, I just ate the insides of the sammy.

Mmm that looks like avocado. But it’s really zucchini. That poser.

While the foreman was on and sexy hot, I threw some figgies on there as well. Topped with some ricotta cheese + maple syrup + cinnamon mixture.

Mmm – thought I’d be way full eating my dessert 5 minutes after dinner, but surprisingly not.

I also snagged a couple peanut M&M’s. Sorry figs. You were a great dessert, but you were no chocolate.

Okay – off to do lab work I procrastinated on all week.

Ciao.

How was your HUMP day?

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Hidden Meanings

I finally tried overnight pumpkin oats this morning.

Which really means that I used up my last bit of sacred pumpkin. 😦 I did make it too large however – so there’s another batch in the fridge 🙂

(Yes, I know I still need to put a picture in that frame)

• 1/4 cup muesli, 1/2 cup almond milk, 1/3 cup pumpkin, scoop of PB, spices, maple syrup soaked overnight
• Vanilla almond granola, handful of Quaker oatmeal squares, 1/2 peach, spoonful of almond butter added this morning

I headed to the gym to do a semi-easy 30 minutes on the stairs, level 10-11.

Which really means I watched an episode of Charmed (loved that show!) on the stairmaster and then ab work.

I wore my Giants hat today to support my home team!

Which really means I didn’t wash my hair after the gym. Oh well.

I did some intense studying and homework at work.

Which really means I watched Definitely, Maybe on the movie channel and played with this little angel. While she used my finger as a teething ring.

I ate my BBQ baked tofu and a baked potato with sour cream, black bean dip & parmesan cheese for lunch.

Which really means my tofu finally came out of the oven last night. And it was delicious!

I ate a date Heart Thrive bar warmed up in the microwave.

Which really means I’m never eating an un-micro’d Heart Thrive again. It was amazing warmed up.

I didn’t get home until 7:30 from work.

Which really means I’m behind on google reader (again!).

For dinner, I had leftover vegan mac & cheese with peas and zucchini. Side of okra fries and probably 1/2 a cup’s worth of ketchup (added more after the picture).

Which really means…okay it doesn’t mean anything except the fact that I was hungry!

It’s Tuesday night.

Which really means The Hills is on. Last week’s epi was ridiculous. Oh that Kristin.

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Hurry Hurry!

It’s just another manic Monday…

I had a naughty naughty dinner. But let’s start at the beginning.

Hurried for the bus, so breakfast this morning was eaten in class so I snapped a picture pre-school.

+

And a banana PB bomb muffin on the road (picture repeater alert – this was taken a few weeks ago)

Hurried to the gym during my break for

• 25 minutes upper body strength
• 10 minutes ab work

Hurried to eat my “lunch” while hurrying to study for my quiz.

Organic apple (organics were on sale woopdeedoo). PB&J on Rudi’s mini cinnamon raisin bagel. And carrots.

Hurriedly walked the 2 miles home rather than take the bus for the extra exercise and fresh air.

Once home, had to hurry to whip up a snack since I had to leave for work in 10 minutes.

I swear there’s a pumpkin smoothie hiding under there somewhere.

Had to help the girl I nanny hurry up on her homework since she had extra today. Where I also snacked on my new freebie I received in the mail today!

Mmmm I wolfed that guy (that would be the tropical fruit flavor) down in a hurry. Delicious – but it really tasted exactly like a cookie to me. Looking at the ingredients and nutrition stats, it really is. A cookie that is. A healthified sweet, delicious, chewy and moist (ew hate that word) cookie.  But I like the fruit & nut flavor I tried at Costco better.

And the shiniest jumbo apple I’ve seen yet.

After work, I hurried home so I could sit.

Ker-plunk.

And blog read.

Hi guys!

I don’t know what that bar and apple had in them, but they killed my appetite for dinner. Around 7:30, I got a teensybit hungry, so I baked what I had been planning on: garlic parmesan zucchini, BBQ baked tofu, and potato wedges. (Decided against the potato since I wasn’t hungry enough).

Necessary supplies.

Hello, my name is Taylor, and I’m a BBQ sauce addict.

I don’t know what I did wrong with the tofu, but according to Kath’s directions, it was supposed to take 20 minutes. 30 minutes? 40 minutes? 1 hour?…

While the tofu was cooking, I ate my zucchini (x this plate by 4 – I ate 3 zucchinis. Oh wait, there were supposed to be leftovers for tomorrow? Sorry about that.)

And then I finally gave up on the everlasting cooking tofu since I wasn’t hungry anymore anyways. They eventually cooked up, but I’ll eat it another day.

Instead I settled on…

Oh dear.

Avert your eyes.

I’m ashamed.

No I’m not, it was good.

Ice cream for dinner 😀

Excuse me.  Let me be politically correct.  Non dairy frozen dessert made with hemp milk.  I wouldn’t want to offendanyone any desserts.

If I could scoop out a tiny bite that is. I dug and dug.

And finally micro’d that sucker up for a bit. Topped with a bit of pumpkin ice cream & whipped cream- man it hit the spot! It was like a pumpkin latte in ice cream form!

Half the carton plus about 1.5 servings of pumpkin ice cream later…

Of course I don’t recommend ice cream for dinner. But I really wasn’t very hungry at all, and needed a bit of something. So…why not, eh?

I’m only now wondering how much caffeine might possibly be in there since it’s coffee flavored?   If I randomly post at 3 am…we’ll find out.

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Donation Creation Fail

A couple blogers have recently written about “Default Thinking” and what you think about during day to day activities. And then Angela wrote yesterday about getting rid of the negative default thoughts that might occur. She recommended writing down all your negative thoughts about yourself every night and morning, and then crossing them out to replace them with positive thoughts.

Here’s a confession: I struggle with a lot of negative self talk that I’m really trying to work through. Having lost a lot of weight in the past, I think it’s still hard for me to accept my new body and trust it. I’ve come a long way, and whenever a negative comment enters my mind, I try my hardest to slap myself (in my head) for it.

I was just about to fall asleep last night, when I remembered I wanted to try out Angela’s exercise. I hopped right up and whipped out a blank page in my journal (which I haven’t written in in a couple months – whoops). This is hard for me to do, but I am going to share with you what I wrote down last night, and what I replaced each thought with.

Note: I know that none of these negaative thoughts are true statements. They are just honest thoughts that popped into my head last night and at often times. I’m just being honest here.

• My arms are fat. I have strong arms from lifting weights. We just rearranged the family room, and I could lift so many things by myself that my skinny roommate could hardly lift for a second….with help.

• My stomach is too flabby. My soft stomach shows how much weight I lost and how hard I worked at it.

• My hair is ugly. I wish I had different hair. Other people love my hair – it curls and straightens.

• I look like a balloon. I look like an athlete.

• I can’t lose weight. I look beautiful how I am. I’ve lost 60 pounds before!! Even though I’ve recently gained weight, I’m stable where I am, and don’t need to lose anything.

• I don’t have a big personality. I wish I was more comfortable to be myself around others. I’m funny and kind. Just don’t be intimidated to show it around people you don’t know well.

So there you have it. Exactly what I wrote down. It’s a process that I’m really working hard on, and I’m hoping that these little lists help. Thanks for the tip Angela 🙂

Now onto eats.

I eventually made my way to campus this morning for a gym & library sesh. Which one was I dreading most did I want to get out of the way first? I chose gym first (which was probably a bad idea because then I was pooped and just wanted to sleep in the library).

Anyways – I’m still on knee hiatus, so I stuck to weights and mat work. I did:

• 20 minutes upper body machines
• 15 minute ab work
• Some lower body PT strength moves
• 5 minutes upper body dumbells

Total: 55 minutes

Phew! Pump that iron! Feel that burn! Build those muscles! Yeah….

Off to nap study time where I snacked on a very appetizing (??) looking cranberry Heart Thrive bar.

Awww Nutrition Therapy Love.

I could barely keep my eyes open and registered….nothing. So I hopped on the next bus, made my way home, vegged on the couch with an iced coffee, Ellen, and a bowl of yum.

Not long after, my roommate and I made the exciting trip downtown to Coldstones for our free $1 donation creation! Which turned out to be a pre-made 3-bite creation. No joke. But I did eat it. In 3 bites.

That would be sweet cream ice cream + brownies + sprinkles + caramel sauce on top. Honestly, all I could taste were the sprinkles (exactly why I hate sprinkles in my ice cream). Why did I eat it again? Not sure. Oh well, what’s done is done.

Needless to say, my roommate and I were still a bit hungry starving after this so we hurried home for dinner.

Laughing cow cheese + sunbutter hummus + spinach + Sunshine falafel burger in a Rudi’s spelt wrap. Grilled on Mr. Foreman. With zucchinis on the side.

(Still not feelin’ the falafel patty.  It’s just dry to me!  Need to pick a better flavor next time).

And a small side mix of random salad gatherings that my roommate gave me. I think there was coleslaw, kideny beans, chickpeas, mushrooms, bell peppers, and olives? With some TJ’s poppyseed dressing.

I also snacked on frozen mango chunks after this. And finished off the meal with a triple chocolate mini Twix bar (those things are good good good – triple the good. Get it? God, I’m clever).

Well I spent the night with google reader and a couple TV shows – Flash Forward (did anyone else watch?? I liked it!) and Supernatural (Dean = drooool). Which means I didn’t study at all. Which also means I need to do that now…

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Ridiculously long pancake name

So….when I was editing pages/posts today, I somehow accidentally deleted my “How I View Food” page (and all comments that went with it), and had to re-write it all.  Yippee!  Nooottttt.

On Saturday I whipped up some pancakes using Hodgson Mill buckwheat pancake mix.  I’ve been in love with this pancake mix for a while now – tasty!  These weren’t just ordinary pancakes (oh no way jose!).  These were blueberry banana peanut butter cinnamon pancakes.  Holla!

Yup, carmelized banana slices.  And for some I stuck a glob of PB in the middle of the batter as the pancake was cooking.

Then I went grocery shopping for our trip to the cabin.  Stopped by Costco, Traders & Whole Fo0ds (I made the rounds!).  Since I hadn’t had lunch, I picked up a Berry Sundae at Costco:

But I really only had a few bites (probably about 1/4 of this – but you all know how massive Costco yogurts are!).  It took me forever to load up the car with our groceries, and by the time I was done, my yogurt was all melted.  And I hate melted, runny yogurt.  Blech.  Oh well.  I got my yogurt fix later that night when the fam took a trip to Yogurtland!! No pic (I forgot my camera in the rush out the door – bad blogger!), but I combined Tiramasu & Cookies n’ Cream with oreo pieces, chocolate sauce & reese’s crumbles.  Yummmm 😀

Today I had some leftover Blueberry Banana Cinnamon Peanut Butter Buckwheat panckes (phew!!  quite the mouthful) and then hit up the gym for a treadmill run.

Today was my “long” run.  I’m taking it slow and increasing 1 run per week by a slight amount.  I’m also increasing my running segments by a teeny bit each week.  Last week my longest run was 4 miles total with 1.7 mile running intervals (walking segments breaking it up).  Today I went for 2 mile intervals, with a 1 mile interval at the end to give me a total of 5 miles running!! Including warm-up, walking intervals & cool-down, it totaled 6.2 miles.  My knee felt really stiff, and my left knee actually hurt a bit, but I’m icing it now.  I finished up with about 13 minutes chest & back, and about 5 minutes ab work.

My sister came home from her gymnastics party with a couple of these frog cookies:

(Their mascot is a frog).  I had a teeny piece of his leg since I’m not a fan of “fake” sugar cookies.

When my sister saw I amputated a piece of him, she comforted the frog and stroked his head, saying “You’ll get, through the surgery.  Don’t worry…”

She’s funny 😀

We ended up leaving for the cabin around 6:30 tonight.  Originally we were planning on leaving tomorrow morning, but last minute left tonight.  Dinner stop along the way…the sisters got Panda Express:

And I picked up Chipotle! Chicken, black beans (yes there are black beans somewhere in there), pico de gallo, corn salsa & massive guac!

I fork fought with my sister over stealing a piece of her orange chicken.  I succeeded, but flung my fork back a little too fast and my piece ended up on the floor.  The orange chicken that never was 😦

Wow that actually looks freakin’ nasty.  I swear the orange chicken was more appetizing in real life.  And on the table.

I’m sure tomorrow we’ll be heading to the lake!  May or may not get some hiking in (my family members who would actually hike with me stayed home this trip).  I’m not sure how much blogging I’ll get done for the next couple days, as internet up here is rrrreeeaalllyyy slow.  But I’ll try!

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