Sad sad empty jars

This is always a glorious sight!! OIAJ anyone?

Unfortunately I ran into 2 problems:

1. I have no oats.

2. It would be quite difficult to dig my spoon into this monstrous jar.

So I had to use my last almond butter remnants on my toast.

I try to make toast look appealing on an Iphone camera. Really, I do. But it’s hard.

Especially sandwich thin toast And since that’s my only form of bread in the house – well. Sandwich thin toast it was!

I then headed out on my first run in almost 3 4 weeks. I honestly can’t remember if it’s been 3 or 4 weeks, and I don’t really feel like figuring it out right now. Hmm…

Distance: 3.75 miles
Time: 37:10

With a few walking breaks – it was pretty tough. Gah. I’m super behind on my half training now. I was up to 10 miles before I had to take a break, and those long runs were still tough. Now I have…8 weeks to work my way back up until my half. Including taper time. We’ll see!

Good news is my side stitch/pulled ab muscle/odd side pain was barely barely noticeable! I’d say it’s about 98.5% better than what it was at the peak. It only slightly hurts now if I push on it.

Post-run lunch was another chicken pesto wrap. Frozen section at Costco.

Hope you’re not sick of these yet. I still have a few in the freezer.

Darn it. Another empty nut butter jar?

This time I used the last of my cashew butter to make my snack – CB&J sammy. Enjoyed at the beach.

I came home starving, devoured a yogurt (unpictured – mucho sorry!), and headed out to pick up some black shoes for work and get some necessary groceries. My little fridge section has looked sad the past couple days.

Pssst that’s the egg white salad container I got from Costco. It’s delicious! Reminds me of those Trader Joe’s egg white salads.

Seriously, not much to work with.

Ahh much better 😀

I’m staying at a friend’s house (actually it’s the house I lived in my past 2 years) for the next 1 1/2 weeks. So I didn’t want to get TOO much food. But I do need some stuff!

Dinner was quick, cheap, and easy.

Pasta pasta pasta! I mixed in some canned green beans.

It was a ton of pasta, but I was still hungry an hour later and cooked up my cauliflower.

Don’t judge.

I want to leave you with what I managed to look like at the end of yesterday. Babysitting + not caring about your looks + slightly hungover leads to this attractive ‘do:

Apparently I also thought I was slightly ghetto.

First day of the real job tomorrow!! Wish me luck 😉

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Foodie Shapes

How happy I am to be back and blogging on a regular schedule 🙂

Hey look – I actually celebrated Waffle Wednesday today!

Get your mind out of the gutter if you’re thinking what I’m thinking about those waffles.

And look closer! You might notice some almond butter on those waffles.

YES. That’s right. TJ’s got my beloved almond butter back in full force. Full force and with a $1 price increase. Whatever, they know I’ll pay for it.

My roommate may or may not have called me yesterday letting me know it was back in stock. True roommate love.

Mid-morning I gave in to the cinnamon rolls screaming my name.

They were baby ones and anything small and petite is just too cute to contain any type of calories or staying power. So let’s just pretend I didn’t have one.

Lunch also consisted of an old favorite. Turkey + spinach artichoke hummus (which I was BEYOND stoked to find at Costco by the way) on the best bread ever.

Obsessed with this bread. I’ll miss it when I move.

More cherries as a snack.

And my random @ss dinner salad. So let’s just call it that. Randass salad.

Does anyone else see a wacked up smiley face in that salad?

That would be:

• Mini cilantro chicken wontons
• Hummus
• Guacamole (the pooey green looking stuff)
• Avocado salsa verde (new find at TJs!)
• Asian sesame dressing
• Mixed greens

These wontons are deeelish. Trying to make my way through a giant Costco bag.

And as an afterthought I added some craisins and snap pea crisps for crunch.

Told you it was random.

And I just came home from work and devoured a piece of white sauce pizza. Greasy and yum.

Other BLTs from the day:

• Coffee & almond milk x1 million
• Some chicken drumstick at work
• 2 bites of birthday cake
• 1 saltwater taffy
• Handfuls of bluberries

And a few work highlights I wanted to share with y’all (I do not know why I just said y’all since I am not southern nor do I ever say y’all).

• The 3 year old asking if we could please go to Disneyland
• The 3 year old also raving about her “beautiful skirt.” And when she mentioned that I didn’t have on a beautiful skirt, she complimented me on my “beautiful jeans.”
• The 15-month old saying my name. Made me so happy 😀

And now I’m about to go spend my Wednesday night hard boiling some eggs (they’re way past their prime and begging to be boiled. I have to let them have their way). And not watch TV since nothing seems to be on tonight!

Psssst tomorrow is Thursday!! Who is excited for the weekend?!

Although closer to the weekend = closer to me cleaning the whole house. And moving. 😦

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A sweetheart-potato

Last night something slipped my mind. I forgot to wish a HAPPY JUNE to one and all!

June. I’m excited for warmth. I’m excited for wearing shorts late into the warm summer nights. I’m excited for hanging by the pool. I’m not excited to leave my house here at school and move home. We have only a few weeks left. It’s weird.

I also felt weird all day. I’m blaming it on too much caffeine which set me up for a few crashes.

First thing up? Morning push-ups! 1 normal set of 20 & 1 set of staggered 15.

Then breakfast of course.

Which would consist of:

• 1 cup Greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup Kashi berry crisp cereal (quite calorie dense!)
• 1 T nut butter
• 1/2 cup bluebs

(Yes I measured it all out. Call me obsessed. Call me weird. Or call me trying to lose a few pounds and I always over-serve myself. Whichever)

Some of the largest bleubs I’ve seen.

He. Bleubs.

Feeling sentimental this morning about school. Cal Poly. I shall miss you.

I think I realize why I had such a bad caffeine reaction today. I had 2 mugs at home + 1 mug driving to work. When usually I have 1 at home and 1 driving to work. Whoops.

And then at work I had a travel mug’s worth. Oy vey.

Lunch was a random mishmash. Sunshine burger garden herb flavor topped with some black bean & corn salsa.

And some mini cilantro chicken wontons that I found at Costco yesterday. I’ve also seen similar ones at TJ’s.

GOOD. And expect to see them almost everyday since I now have a monster sized bag fit for a football player normal foodie to use up.

With necessary dipping sauces – BBQ sauce for the burger. Asian dressing for the wontons.

Dessert. Of the sugar-free variety.

And carrots + salsa because I was not yet satisfied.

And this is where the crash comes in. And hour later I had the shakes/low-blood sugar feelings. Thinking it was my smallish lunch and body craving carbs, I dug through the cabinets and found some bagel thins (the plain white variety which honestly tasted exactly like an english muffin. I’d only had the whole wheat before).

Topped with some PB I brought along for dinner.

Sidenote – I tried the PB years ago and loved it. Then I bought it again last year and it tasted of pure fish. NAST-O!!! I decided to try it out again, and behold – it’s delicious again! Salty, yes. But I love it.

This helped me out for a short bit, but I still felt off and shaky all afternoon. With a bad headache. So I kept munching.

I finally felt better after the popcorn at around 4:30. It’s hard for me a lot of times to tell if I’m truly hungry. I rarely get true hunger pains and a grumbly tummy. I usually get light-headed, weak, shaky & hypoglycemic So it’s often times difficult to differentiate between other symptoms and hunger for me. Today it was a caffeine crash. The crash felt similar to how I feel when I’m hungry. And therefore – I ate.  Other times it might be nerves.  Or I honestly might just be feeling sick & shaky.  But I mistake it for hunger.  It’s difficult.

Dinner was a sweet potato topped with PB, cottage cheese & hummus.

Looks like a heart right? Yes – a heart. Don’t go somewhere else with your mind.

Hummus & sweet potato? Will you be my next love? Thanks sweet [heart].

Also, a pear & hot cocoa were eaten past dinner.

Since American Idol ended, my Tuesday and Wednesday nights seem so empty and unexciting now! What are you watching on those nights (besides Glee of course)?

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Meatless Monday

Ahoy! I hope everyone’s weekend was all you hoped it to be 🙂

After working from 7-4 on Saturday, I crashed and was on the couch the rest of the night watching TV and then the Blind Side (good movie!!). Sunday was just cleaning, grocery shopping, and more sitting on the couch 😉

I kept breakfast this morning light since I ate at 10:15, and I knew I was eating lunch out!

Yogurt + blackberries (which I splurged on this weekend) + cinnnamon PB + a handful of cereal. And since I ate it before I remembered to capture it on camera, here are the ingredients which went into the making of such a breakfast:

Excited to try the PB! Good, but not nearly as life changing as the maple almond butter. Had to get every last bit out.

Seriously. Don’t judge. You’d do the same.

I then proceeded to foam roll for a good 25 minutes and stretch. I’ve taken over a week of from running, but yet have majorly slacked on the rolling, which isn’t good. Roll roll roll it out! (sang to tune of ‘Row Row Row Your Boat’)

Then the roommate and I got our shop on at Express with our $15 off of a $30 purchase coupons. I walked out with some new jeans y’all for $24!And a new clutchity clutch from TJ Maxx.

Speaking of new clothes, I also put my discount to some work the other day when I stopped in at Gap. Loving these new jeans I got for only $22!

And also needed some longer shorts I could wear to work.

Is it just me or do those pictures remind you of online shopping and clicking on different colors of the same shirt. And then the shirt color changes in front of your eyes? I’m pretty sure I did actually change bottoms and re-take the picture, as much as it looks like I’m standing in the exact same pose.

Now back to today’s shopping…Took a pit stop for some grub – Veggie pizza (I think it had tomatoes, broccoli, olives, basil and garlic?) with goat cheese (instead of mozzarella) on whole wheat. + a small side salad which escaped the camera.

Love this restaurant’s (Pizza Solo) whole wheat crust. So chewy! I’ve been dreaming about this pizza since the last time I went (when I got Teriyaki chicken pizza), and thought of the idea to get goat cheese on one. It was good, but I’d definitely get some different veggies next time! And maybe some chicken?

I practiced some major self restraint and only had half, which I was happy about 20 minutes later when I was full. And I’ll be happy tomorrow when I have leftovers.

Throughout the afternoon I snacked on dried apricots

And some Nature’s Path granola (so good!)

For dinner I whipped up a version of eggplant parmesan!

• 2 egg whites
• 1/2 cup whole wheat bread crumbs
• Garlic salt, paprika & cumin
• 1 eggplant
• 1 1/2 cups (half a jar) butternut squash pasta sauce
• 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1. Combine the bread crumbs & spices.
2. After peeling and slicing the eggplant, dunk each slice in the egg whites and then coat them with the bread crumb + spice mixture.
3. Cook in skillet sprayed with pam or with a bit of oil. Flip to cook both sides.
4. Lay the eggplant in a pan. I used a square 8 x 8 pan, so I had 3 layers of eggplant. After the first layer, coat with pasta sauce and sprinkle with half the cheese. Layer the rest of the eggplant on top. Top with pasta sauce and the rest of the cheese.
5. Bake at 350F for 35-40 minutes.

Delicious!!! This was so good. Very happy it turned out right since I didn’t look at any recipes.

Plus night-time snackage – frozen blueberries, hot cocoa, and an apple with PB. For some reason my night-time snacks always miss the camera

Now it’s no surprise that my meals were meatless today since I don’t buy/eat meat much at school. But I realized just now that my meals were meatless versions of usually “meaty meals.” Vegetarian pizza instead of meat pizza and eggplant parmesan instead of chicken parm! Go me 😉

Now if only the weather here were actually warm, I could get some beach and sun time in 🙂 Unfortunately it’s been low 60s for a while and doesn’t look to warm up! Where is our California summer weather??

Is it warm where you’re living right now?

And anything exciting over the weekend happen?

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Gettin’ Busy

I know there are a multitude of motherly devoted posts floating around out there today. So add one more to the bunch 😉

Mommy – I love you!!! You’ve done so much for all of us. I don’t know how you put up with 5 kids!! We share a passion for health, nutrition and fitness, and I don’t think I would have those interests if it weren’t for her!

Trying our first Cosmos in Mexico together (yes, she never had a Cosmo until a few years ago!)

We did the SF Women’s Nike marathon 3 years in a row. Only one year I walked the half with her, and the others years I ran on my own. But it was still great to have her support. I keep trying to motivate her to run, and dream to run a half with her one day!

Love you Mommy!!

This weekend, the kitchen and I have gotten busy. Most of the roommates were out of town, and I some POM juice I wanted to experiment with, so I thought to msyelf “Taylor – this would be an excellent weekend to bake.” So bake I did.

Yesterday I whipped up my first ever batch of homemade granola! (Recipe to come tomorrow)

And maple pecan nut butter.

1. Toast 1 1/2 cups pecans at 350 for 6-8 minutes.
2. Process in a food processor, sraping down the sides as needed.
3. Once the nuts are smooth, drizzle in 2-3 tsp maple syrup and 1/4 tsp salt.
4. Continue to process until completely smooth.

My mini-food processor is not that powerful, and I definitely didn’t process this for long enough. I also added way too much maple syrup, and it became an ooey gooey mess. But I do not lie when I say it tastes exacly like cookie dough. Therefore, I deem this pecan butter a complete and utter success. Not very practical for spreading, but definitely practical for crumbling over food – such as oats or apples!

And also practical for eating straight up. Duh.

Today I hit up the gym (2.5 mile treadmill run!), then hit up our school’s baseball game. Which was slightly painful. I came back and snacked on this:

Which was good!! I was not expecting to like an orange-chocolate bar. But it tasted like a fig newton.

And granola:

Someone send me lotion ASAP.

And then got busy with Mr. Kitch again. Together we made Blueberry Pomegranate Muffins.

I seriously couldn’t wait 1 minute to try these out as my plate obviously shows 😉 Spread with some nut butter for good measure.

Oh and uh seconds, obvs.

This one a bit more cooled & structured. With cream cheese in the middle.

Nommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Recipe for these to come tomorrow as well. Be patient my friends! It is a virtue 🙂

Now I’m eating carrots and ranch + BBQ sauce dip.

And obviously won’t be hungry for a big dinner, since I did eat all this at around 4:30-5:00. Snackin’ my way through the evening!

How was everyone’s Mother’s Day? Did you see your momma?

My siblings all pitched in to send our mommy an edible bouquet. I’m kind of sad I’m not home to try out some of the fruit!!

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Help me choose!

Hello my lovelies! I was super excited to get going this morning because I had something special to use – new running shoes!!

My grandma bought me new shoes for my birthday, so I went and got re-fitted yesterday. First, they filmed me running on the treadmill (which I’ve never had done before), and then analyzed my gait.

She then filmed me again running in their normal running shoes with my orthotics in.

Now I’ve been running in Saucony Stabils, with absolute maximum support and motion control, for the past 3-4 years. The girl who was helping me was quite surprised I was running in such supportive shoes, especially with my orthotics. She said I really only needed mild to moderate support shoes along with my orthotics to fix my pronation.

I then tried on a ton of shoes. I also have a very narrow heel, so many shoes (especially Nikes) slip! The pair I really wanted also didn’t come in a big enough size (I’m size 11-11.5! Bigfoot over here). I ended up with my some new Brooks!

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I’ve never ran in Brooks shoes before, so we’ll see how this goes!

This morning I had 1/2 a hemp bagel spread with almond butter and Crofter’s jam shortly before heading out.

I tried out some soynut butter which I was sent to review on my bagel first.

But I just couldn’t get into it. I’ve been trying it on multiple occasions in all different ways. It tastes exactly like soynuts – which I do like! But I’m just not a huge fan of the nut butter version. Even though it does have excellent stats! Check out the fiber and protein!

I’d still recommend trying it out if you like soynuts! Tastes just like it.

Post 3 mile run, 25 minute foam roll & stretching came lunch.

Leftover pineapple, black beans and chicken.

With rice.

Yummy yummy in my tummy!

But still very hungry hungry an hour later.

A serving of yogurt and Kashi blueberry flakes cereal.

Forgot I had this sample from forever ago!

Followed by an apple of sorts.

Other afternoon snacks at work consisted of –

Iced SF hazelnut coffee with half & half

Cranberry heart thrive

And a banana to tide me over until dinner.

And oh what a yummy dinner it was!

Buttnernut squash lasagna (I’ll post the recipe soon)

Deeeeeeeeeelicious 😀

The rest of the night was full of my future boyfriend Idol,

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Strawberries

And GLEE!!!

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Now I need your help!!

Now it’s vote time! I’ve been shopping for a birthday dress for this Friday’s celebrations 😉 But I can never make decisions – it’s hard! So I’m asking you all to give me your opinions. Please ignore my dirty, hat hair! And my awkward looks since I didn’t know what face to make.

Option A: (closed eyes!) Yes, it has a zipper down the front – odd but I like it! And the whole body portion is kind of scrunchy. With a frilly bottom.

Option B: Looks short on the right side, but I think it was bunched up a bit. Also I was obviously caught in the middle of awkward laughing. Ummm…I obviously don’t channel Miss Kailey well.

And here I slouch…

All right peeps, opinions opinions! And if you feel the need, you can give me your reasonings 😉 I am quite indecisive, haha.

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Goodbye Sunbutter, Hello Sun!

I hope you all are having a fabulous weekend. It’s been a beautiful weekend over here…and no finals to study for! 😀

I started off Saturday morning with some PB mocha oats.

• 1/3 cup oats + 1/4 cup oat bran + 1 cup almond milk
• 2 egg whites
• Scoop of instant coffee
• Chocolate PB2
• Justin’s honey PB
• Cream cheese
• Granola

So delicious. But now I’m out of instant coffee powder 😦

I then did a little mini-workout here at home consisting of tae bo upper body punches! I used to do Billy Blanks tae bo DVDs all the time when I was first starting to lose weight. And even after I lost all my weight, I occasionally did them. If you contract your muscles and punch with strength, it really works and makes you sore!

I did 2 sets of each of the following (30 seconds each):

• Front punches
• Front upper cuts
• Side jab with a cross-over punch (with the other arm) – each side
• Side jabs (30 seconds each side)
• Side upper cut (each side)
• Side jabs alternating punching high and low (with squats) – each side

Total: 10 minutes

• 7 minutes ab work
• 50 reps of clams on each side (hip exercise)
• Stretch

I eventually hit the road to run some errands, without even thinking of grabbing a snack. So unlike me! It had been 4 hours since breakfast and I was starting to get hungry, so I knew I needed something.

Enter Jamba Juice. Mangos, peaches, OJ, and ‘lower calorie dairy base’.

Fueled me well 🙂

Until my afternoon snack before dinner of carrots and dip. Look – I remembered to photograph it! Obvious why I never remember – it’s not very entrancing 😉

The dip just consisted of a mixture of raspberry dressing, feta dressing & BBQ sauce. Weird? Maybe. But delicious. And homemade iced coffee.

Dinner was uninteresting so let’s just move on shall we?

I woke up this morning extremely sore!  Especially in my back.  Replenished the muscles with oatmeal again. This time in a jar!

• 1/3 cup oats + 1/4 cup oat bran + 1 cup almond milk
• 2 egg whites
• Cocoa powder & chocolate PB2 powder
• Extra spoonful of honey PB for good measure 😉

This was the end of the last of my sunflower seed butter jars. Thank you so much to Sunbutter for sending me so many delicious varieties to try out. I loved them all – sunflower seed butter is some tasty stuff 🙂 Just like spreading melted sunflower seeds onto your toast or oatmeal!

Mmmm chocolatey oats.

I then hit up the Cal Poly baseball game. Go Mustangs!! We didn’t win 😦 But it was a good game. I grew up surrounded by baseball and I miss it! My brother has played in extremely competitive leagues since he was younger and now plays for U Penn (although I wish he played here.  How fun would that be to go see him play?!). Baseball is definitely a comfort thing as well.

Game snackage.

It was okay. Sticky and very sweet – it reminded me of a Fiber One bar. Okay so it was quite tasty actually. Yet low in the fiber category – only 2 grams.

Dinner tonight was kind of lame.

I tried out a pre-packaged meal of roasted red pepper and chicken alfredo pasta. It was nasty. Bland and processed tasting. I literally had 3 or 4 bites before I tossed it.

My salad was good! I sauteed asparagus in

• Sesame oil
• Rice vinegar
• Garlic
• Soy sauce

Then ate it over mixed greens with Trader Joe’s raspberry vinaigrette. I also tossed in some nutritional yeast, and once combined with the warm asparagus, it melted into a creamy consistency. Yum!

And had some leftover kabocha squash.

Since it was a ‘heavy on the veggies, light on the other foods’ type of dinner, I went back for a handful of pistachios

(major moisturizing needed)

And an apple with almond butter later in the night. Plus hot cocoa of course.

About 3-4x the amount of shown almond butter was consumed. I finally bought this one at TJs a couple weeks ago.

HOLY YUM!!! It has a very unique and crunchy taste (I’m guessing due to the flaxseeds). Almond butter has such great stats – I had no idea it had such a good amount of calcium in it!

Any weekend highlights from your neck of the woods?

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The Red Carpet

Thank you for your well wishes for my roommate 🙂 She’s doing better, but is still in massive pain. We’re all praying the doctor found something with her ultrasound and can give her a better diagnosis tomorrow morning.

My endoscopy also went way easier than expected! I honestly don’t recall a thing of it – thank you sleepy meds! 😉

The rest of my Friday was spent sleeping and being groggy. I just completely forgot to take pictures of anything! In fact, I got in the bad habit of not taking pics of most things all weekend.

Yesterday was a breakfast repeat of Mocha PB oats.

The normal 1/3 cup oats + 2/3 cup almond milk + 2 egg whites cooked on the stove.

Instant coffee powder and chocolate PB2 stirred in towards the end. I then simmered it for a bit to thicken the oats up.

Topped off with vanilla greek yogurt “frosting”, Justin’s honey PB, and vanilla cashews.

Phenom.

Yes, I am in the possession of some new PB! I saw Justin’s nut butter on sale, and knew I needed to take advantage. His maple almond butter is the best almond butter ever. It was about double the price of the peanut butter, however, so I figured the PB would be just as good.

Immediately broken into and taste tested.

It’s good. But just like normal sweet peanut butter. Nothing special. The maple almond butter would have definitely been worth the extra $4.

I then proceeded to spend the rest of my Sunday doing pretty much nothing. Went on a walk to the grocery store, then went to Borders to catch up on some necessary reading (US and Cooking Light magazines – duh). And then home for the Oscars!!

Best and Worst dressed? Thoughts?

I admit I didn’t see everyone on the red carpet, so I’m sure I’m missing some exquisite people!

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I loved Demi’s, but J. Lo looked like she was wearing bubble wrap.

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Beautiful

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I’m sorry, but I wasn’t a fan of SJP. It was like a backwards halter? And her hair looked really messy from the front when she was giving her award.

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And many more! I feel that there were so many “best dressed” last night! Loved so many of them.

This morning I was up to drive my roommate to her appointment. I wasn’t very hungry at all, so I grabbed a light breakfast of Thomas whole wheat bagel thin. (The other half that I ate pre-photo had honey PB)

These bagels are okay – definitely thin! I was expecting them to be similar to sandwich thins, but they definitely have that “bagel taste” to them. Good for a light bagel, but definitley no chewy dense bagel 😉

All right off to CPR final and then Clinical Nutrition lab final! I’ll hopefully fit in a swim or weight sesh between the two during my break.

Have a Manic wonderful Monday!

Who were your choices for best dressed last night? Any favorites out there?

I think Cameron, Queen Latifah and Miley looked stunning. They were all beautiful!

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So Long Favorites

So I realize I’ve been such a slacker at posting these past few weeks. And everytime I put a post up, I apologize. I think the main reason is that my meals have been completely

A) Unexciting

B) Repetitive

C) Both A & B

Due to some unexpected circumstances, I am on an extremely tight budget. I was on a tight budget before, but now even tighter. Therefore, I’m on a massive “eat what I have in the pantry” kick. And since I have about 8 boxes of cereal, meals have been incorpating a lot of this.

And since eggs are cheap, a lot of plain boring scrambles have been consumed as well.

My breakfasts are still delicious, but I’ve been slowly saying goodbye to some favorites…

Goodbye Naturally More 😦 Until next time.

Egg + butternut squash + the last of my pumpkin butter sammy. Goodbye pumpkin butter 😦 You were tasty.

This was good guys. Thank you oh Queen of Snacks for the inspiration.

You were definitely my favorite VitaTop dear banana nut. Thanks for the good times.

Crumbled on cinnamon yogurt (cinnamon + yog) with some Crofter’s superfruit jam and Sunbutter.

I really like this Asia flavor – Raspberries and Yumberries blended with morello cherries and red grapes. A lot more than the North America flavor (blueberries and cranberries). I think it’s a bit sweeter.

But most of my lunches have consisted of nut butter + jam sandwich thins.

Oh wait! Last week I got some turkey on sale and threw that into the mix.

And dinners have been so boring I don’t even feel the desire to document them.  I realized that I haven’t made anything new or any new recipes!  I used to do that all the time, and have leftovers all week.  Hopefully once I clear out my current food stock, I can get back to that.

I promise I’ll try and be better about it, but I highly apologize if my meals seems mundane and boring. Such is life I suppose

I have been swimming! Last week I swam twice, and twice this week so far as well.

Monday – 2500 yards in 50 minutes
Tuesday – 2400 yards in 50 minutes (with a break in there because my foot was cramping up!)

This is the way most my swim workouts have been coming out to be:

• 700-1000 yards freestyle warmup (28-40 laps)
• 5 X 200’s, alternating between:
  • 200 IM
  • 200 freestyle pulling
• 400-500 pull with paddles OR
• 6 X 75’s IM order
• 100 or so cooldown

Not my exact workout, but the general basis. I need to get new workouts somehwere online. Swimplan.com?

Best get back to studying since we’re going out tonight! Rare for a weeknight, but I don’t have work tomorrow, and my roommate’s morning class was canceled. Might as well take advantage! 😉

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B-E-A-U-tiful

As I’m sure many of you know, today is Love Your Body Day. My school actually had a 2-day event on Monday and Tuesday with speakers, booths, and activities that I couldn’t make it to 😦 My roommate ran one of the booths though. She said it was awesome 🙂 In honor of this day, I’m giving my body an extra pat on the back and some lovin’ tonight.

Dearest Body of mine,

You know what’s strange? We spend every minute, every second, every waking moment together, yet I don’t think we have a very close relationship. As much as I should appreciate you, I’ve given you such a hard time over the years, and never gave you the trust you deserve.

You’ve served me well for so many years (22 years, 6 months, and 6 days to be exact), allowing me to breathe fresh air and freshly baked cookies; see the ones I love and the bright colors of a rainbow; hear teachers lectures and the sounds of country music; taste my favorite foods and and ones I could live without; and touch the prickly grass or my little sister’s hand. You’ve given me something that we only get one of, something that so many people get taken away in an instant, something that we all take for granted – a life. You’ve allowed me to laugh, to cry, to love, to run – to do everything I’ve ever done.

I’ve given you a hard time about your thick legs. But those legs are strong and have carried me many miles. I’ve given you a hard time about your poochy belly. But that belly is mine and no one else’s. I’ve given you a hard time about overeating. But I need to learn to trust you and know that you want what’s best for me.

Dear body, I thank you. And here’s something I’ve actually never said to you, and something I should say to you more often – I love you.

Love, Tay (The “Brain” to your body)

What have you done to appreciate your body today?

I completely overslept my alarm by almost an hour this morning (I have been dead tired lately!) So I literally threw my breakfast in a to-go container, and ate it during class. But if you really want to see what I had, check out last Wednesday, or here, or over there. I really am starting a tradition.

Although my oats today were banana-less. And let me tell you, a mashed banana makes all. The. Difference. Definitely not as good.

I then gave up my scheduled gym time to study. Sometimes it’s hard to realize that school does come first. Le sigh.

Snack/lunch#1 (you can call it whatever you want – be my guest) in class.

SB&J (sunbutter & jam) on sandwich thin.

Wow – that looks fabulous.

+ a giant apple larger than my head.

I brought along a couple more snacks to work to make up for my “lunch”, but ended up eating a slice of this turkey eggplant lasagna.

How could I resist that? This calmed my hunger, but then…

Attack of the Munchies!! Unfortunately, I had no gum, but I dug into a bag of BBQ kettle chips.

And carrots

Eventually the munchies departed on their merry little way.

Once home, I made something that’s been missing from my life for quite a while.

No..not a man. 😦

Pumpkin French Toast!

Okay – so they look like pancakes, but I swear it was french toast thins. Sandwich thins to be exact (can you tell I recently brought back a bag of them from home?)

I’ve seen pumpkin french toast on April’s blog over and over again, and finally remembered to make some. I soaked 3 sandwich thin slices in a mixture of:

• 3 egg whites
• Pumpkin
• Splash of soymilk
• Pumpkin pie spice
• Maple syrup

Then fried those suckers up.

Each layer was topped off with a mix of pumpkin cream cheese, sunbutter, plain oikos, and Banana Nut Cheerios.

Mmmmm. While delicious, it was a bit too soggy for my taste. I think I used too much pumpkin and it couldn’t get “crispy.” Or maybe it was the sandwich thins. Or maybe they were just delicious either way.

Open up!

Nom.

Followed by agave-drizzled raspberries.

And a couple of these mini-dudettes (yes they’re girl cookies apparently) that I received in the mail.

I tried the orange mint.

I did not think I would like orange and mint together at all, but they were actually quite tasty! And at 25 calories per piece – not bad.

Oh! I can’t believe I forgot to tell you guys!

Love Your Body Day turns into Love Your Kitchen Appliance Night.

My grandma gave me a food processor! I’m sure it’s the not the sharpest tool blade in the shed catalogue, but it will do to make some banana whip. Thank you Sissie!

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